So I don’t have an issue making coffee for a living. I also write content for a broker, which is awesome–I mean, I’m a freelance writer who works at a coffee shop also. How Seattle is that? But what I do mind is people thinking those who don’t have jobs are lazy. See there’s a real problem in our society that equates work to productivity and your contribution to society. But making coffee for people doesn’t make the world a better place. It just feeds people’s caffeine addiction. Writing copy for corporations–and I’ve written for companies you’ve definitely heard of, doesn’t make the world better, it just tells people they should buy more things they don’t need.
Now I’m really lucky because with the advent of the internet I was given a job. Freelance writing from home is a great privilege and it’s a job I would not have had even 3 years ago. Or even 2 years ago. However, for every job the internet creates many are destroyed. I mean Amazon has made bookstores basically obsolete. Right now we have Uber and Lyft that provide jobs and autonomy to people, but what happens when Google’s driverless cars are everywhere. We won’t need human drivers to take us places. So technology is getting better and better and jobs are fewer and fewer. When do we, as a culture, a society realize, oh, there are way more people in the world than there are jobs. So the people who don’t have jobs aren’t lazy, there just isn’t paying job in existence for them. Do we let these people starve? Why would I need a janitor if we have a robot who can mop?
Look, I know it feels like homeless or jobless people are lazy sometimes. And some of them are. But many have skills that are simply not used anymore in the work place. A man who used to manufacture cars is no longer needed. Robots do his job and there’s another robot that fixes those robots. Just one guy is employed to fix that one robot, and that’s only part time. So what happens when work ends? I don’t know. But we need to come to an understanding that the end of work, isn’t as far away as we think.
The same is true when I come to work. It’s like changing your face. Getting ready for the game, preparing yourself to perform to a certain standard. By the end of the day, I like to be able to look back on the things I’ve done and say, “yes, I did a lot today.” When it comes to working a job, it’s always nice to be kept busy. The last thing I want to do is be costing the company money by standing around while no customers are there. The whole point of a job is to be useful. If I can’t be of use to the company at that time, I shouldn’t be standing around trying to make myself busy. Conversely, if there is lots to be done, time can fly when you are busy. It’s fun to look at the clock and realize you’ve been working for hours and not even known it.
fiction, or poetry, bookstores are a place to discuss our favorite stories, reason through our favorite philosophies, glean more from simple lines pack with so much meaning as poetry is want to do. A bookstore is like one big book club, with everyone reading different books and then sharing ideas of why they did or didn’t like each volume they’ve poured over. And this all circles back around to community. A customer of a bookstore isn’t there because they know exactly what they want. They are there to discover, to listen for recommendations.
Winter Station 