Practical definition: “Harsh working conditions”

Posted by Marc Hodak on June 24, 2012 under Practical definitions | 2 Comments to Read

This video perfectly encapsulates the difference between the Mother Jones and Inc. views of the world:

So, the new definition of harsh working conditions include:  Working in a quiet setting; having to bend over and to stand on your tippy toes; doing your job as fast and as well as you can.  Oh the horror.

This kind of reminds me of Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed in America,” a manual on how to complain about not having everything given to you.  I learned about that insipid book only because it was required reading at my kid’s Upper West Side school, apparently in the module on becoming an effete intellectual incapable of manual labor. (For those of you who were forced to endure its 240 pages of whining, here is the inspiring antidote.)

A couple of things make me hopeful.  First, reality intrudes. I know a few of the kids who were indoctrinated along with mine, and—like my kids—quickly figured out that what they learned in their gym class was more important than what they learned in their social studies; the real world is a competitive place; you either learn to love hard work, or you learn to accept being an also-ran.

Second, the zeitgeist seems to be changing.  I was apparently not the only person who found this ‘story’ execrable. Check out the comments on Yahoo, which draws from a far-from-conservative crowd. Nearly everyone there ridiculed this story.