They asked what our starting pay is. Funny thing is, I don’t even remember. I could theoretically do the math backwards from paystubs, but eh. I know how much to expect.

Regardless, I said somewhere around 13 dollars, but the company I work for is unionized so the shit pay is offset a little bit by ensured basic rights like the ability to actually take breaks, unlike any of my previous workplaces. Coworkers are awesome, even management’s tolerable.

They said they worked for a place that was “worker-run” but then it stopped being so worker-run so they quit. Then they said Walmart of all places had started hiring at 17 an hour, all positions, so that was still their first choice.

To see a small wage increase (not even to a livable wage) sway a worker in real time against the right to negotiate with their employer as workers collectively… bruh. It just sucks.

I once worked for a pharmacy where I made $16.50 an hour and I consider it one of the worst jobs in the world. It was so alienating, I had intrusive thoughts like

unhinged

“maybe in this hellworld the only way to escape this miserable unlife is to become the slaveowner. I am a slave to insurance companies. I am a slave to Big Pharma. I am a slave to my hitlerite managers. I am a slave to ungrateful piece of shit geriatrics who are upset they had to wait 5 minutes longer for their viagra than normal because insurance is trying to charge another customer $800 for their life-preserving medication and I’m trying to convince them fucking not to. Nobody is grateful or ever will be for your labor and all of your labor is in service of capitalist slaveowners. this will never change.”

etc. etc. It’s maybe a bit worrisome that I remember that feeling so intensely, I don’t know. At the same time, those thoughts and my internal battle against them were instrumental in creating a fundamental understanding in me that wages are not worth your sanity, your ability to take breaks, your ability to call in, your ability to take or leave more work at your request.

I am so grateful for my new job tbh, cringe as it may be. I am learning to enjoy labor for labor’s sake. Making actual, meaningful connections with people. And I get to take breaks, in fact I am forced to take a break. This is because we have a union.

I don’t know if Walmart conditions have improved generally… but every time I’ve been inside a Walmart, I’ve thought to myself *If I ever find myself working here, I am going to redacted myself. I’ll have to."

I don’t know. I’m having a strange time with it all. Unions are good, and I’m beholding a part of the struggle in real-time. Thanks for reading or even skimming 🫡

Don’t work at Walmart if you don’t have to, kids.