I got another job

I actually found out today, when they rang and asked if I could work tomorrow. It's for this events agency. I'm a steward, or a waiter, or a bus-boy, or a barman, or whatever it is they require as they require it. It's just a minimum wage shitter I can do part-time between banging your mother and my masters, and the majority of it is in the evening-to-late-night which lends itself quite well to my inverted circadian rhythm.

The lady on the phone specified that I wear black pants, black shoes and a white shirt. The thing is, I don't have black pants, or even a white shirt come to think of it. I have charcoal/almost black pants and a sort of off-white/crème shirt, so I had to go out and get some black pants and a white shirt, while resenting my employers the whole time for it.

This whole process pisses me off, not because I have to wear gay ass clothes that make me feel awkward (although that is an irritation), but because I hate going out on a limb for jobs. They impose on everything without any right to. I wrote that lunch-hour blog which covers a similar idea. They take from you more than what they pay you for, and by that I mean they make you do shit like go out in your own time to buy a load of clothes they want you to wear with your own money. They rang today asking me to work tomorrow as well. Am I meant to drop all the shit I'm doing (watching Tron) to go out and buy some clothes because they want them? God damn it. I get the job and what the fuck, I'm starting at like negative £30 and a chunk outta me-time.

All I ask is that they pay me for the work I do for them. Buying this shit counts, as it is my time and effort expended in aid of something they ask me to do. It's working for them. Unpaid, this is the overspill, and overspill can go fuck itself. They have no right to any of my time outside of work, and my money?! That's a whole other issue. I'm not their friend, I'm not doing them favours. We have a business arrangement. It's cold, yeah, but as a system the trade of labour for money is cold. I just want it to be a fair trade off, and it isn't. It's totally one sided and it's exploitative.

If the work requires a certain dress code then that's fair enough, but if they want me in a uniform they should give me a fucking uniform. Would you make a builder buy their own hard-hat? What about a police-man his own flak jacket? Those two examples have practical purposes but the arbitrary dress code is no different if it's unwavering. If it's non-negotiable, for all intents and purposes it is necessary. Mathematically speaking, they would amount to the same variable in the equation, therefore their non-negotiable dress code is as much a necessity as a flak jacket is to a police-man; one of them is just synthetic, the other organic.

Anyway, you might argue that the majority of people already own black shoes, black pants and a white shirt, so it's not such a big deal. This is true but why do you think people already own those items? Because other jobs required them to. I'm sure people who love to lounge around in suit pants and starched shirts all day exist somewhere but I defy you to find me one. As it stands I'm spending money on my employer so they look better. I'm not employing them! If I'm not a shareholder, or investor, or the owner of the company then how I look when I'm paid to represent them is their job if they want me to look a certain way, not mine.

If you think about it, it's almost like they're saying 'if you don't wear this, you won't be getting employed'. That's also known as extortion.

Is it not a reasonable request that if they require I wear a uniform, they provide one? By uniform I mean any specified dress code. If it was a dress code of jeans, t-shirts and hoodies all that would do is conveniently align the dress code with what I usually wear, but it's still a uniform, and should still be provided because it is them who require it. It is a reasonable request, it's just that the standard is otherwise. Barely anybody questions reality as they've always known it. They just accept it, literally, on face-value. You wouldn't be expected to do the shopping for some other person's household, at your own expense no less, would you? You wouldn't even do that for a friend unless they were going to reimburse you.

Jesus, you'd think I'd just be happy I got a job eh? I should work for the unions.

By the way, you do not even want to be around for the repercussions following anybody quoting that old trite idiom 'you think the world owe's you a living'. If you're thinking that right now, please know, and this is with absolute certainty, you are a moron. That's it. If you were in any doubt at all, if you are thinking of that phrase right now, rest assured you are a moron.

Good day.