First they came for the welfare.

But I said nothing, for I had no need of welfare, and besides they called it "reform."

Then they came for the body armor, but still I said nothing, for I had no need of body armor, being safe at home, not at war in Iraq.

And then they came for the nurse's stations...

One morning last week en route to my job, I fell down on the ice while getting off a commuter bus. I landed on my hands and left knee, which was scraped but not badly enough to stop me from continuing on in to work.

To avoid infection, I decided to visit the company nurse for some casual first aid. Sounds like a plan...except that there WAS no company nurse.

So I went to the front desk and got a bandage and a bottle of spray-on disenfectant from the receptionist. Then I went to the washroom, washed, rinsed and dressed the wound, returned the supplies and went back to work.

Welcome to the U$ of A in the new millenium. How do you like your dystopia?

basically the conveyor belt was fked up and fixed with TAPE so every so often it'd grab the plate the boxes were supposed to dump onto and jam. and I had to yank it up again. It grabbed the plate while I was yanking it up and slammed rusty metal into my little finger, sort of vertically cutting it along the edge of my nail so that it sort of spread apart in a V. both supervisors were standing RIGHT THERE because I'd asked them to for fk's sake come and LOOK AT THIS THING and could we FIX it, please?

they laughed. aw, did you hurt your wittle finger? i was sent to a dirty tool box to get my own band-aid. then i came back to clean my own blood off the conveyor belt because by then they'd both wandered off. no accident report. no nothing. i got a darvocet off a neighbor so I could sleep for the pain. a holistic sort of friend told me to put cinnamon in it and tape the fuck out of it, and it healed together after a LONG time. no tetanus shot, no antibiotics, nothing.

and re: why we should be thankful's first reply, they hired me in after six months of temping, for another three months of probation with a pay cut because eventually i'd theoretically have benefits. they laid me off after Sept 11th, then hired me BACK in--on probation, again, basically starting over like a new hire would. because I'd missed two days in this nine months or so and had an "absenteeism problem" for untreated migraines. their other reason was my "lack of team spirit" because they were constantly wanting me to stay four hours overtime a night when they knew damn well I was carpooling and couldn't.

sorry. sometimes it makes me feel better to whine, lol. and yeah, i just LOVE bush's amerika, and the fact that my dad ends up in tears every time he drinks because he used to encourage kids like me to work in plants because it'd set them for life if they were hard-working and loyal.

that's why they try to crush them.

And, welcome to DU!

Bushco wants cheap, "guestworkers" they can hire at minimum wage or lower, use up, then toss back to their native countries once their guestworker visas expire. They don't get to join unions, they don't get seniority, they don't get tenure, and they sure as hell don't make waves because they know their existence here is tenuous. Most of all, then there is no excuse to raise the minimum wage because they can spew about how millions are "thrilled" to be working for it. :eyes:

withour fear of blowback.

If you're a FOG (friend of George), it's all good.