Stickin’ it to the Man: 78 Years in Hell

The five-day work week was officially sanctioned by the American Federation of Labor on October 3^rd 1933. The government repealed Prohibition barely two months later on December the 5^th. Take a mile, give an inch. The workers put their heads together and decided drinking on the job was the government mandate. And so that’s what they did for forty years… among other unmentionables.

Fuck the five-day work week. Fuck that bitch and the suit and tie wearing horse hog it rode in on. While your ass is down in the gutter scratching and clawing over increased benefits and paid holidays, that motherfucker is strolling up the steps of an Ivory Tower doing the Bernie Dance and giving you the hairy hole wink wink. Ascension complete, that parading, condescending colt cock has the balls to ask if you’d mind coming in on Saturday. Pro bono, of course… for the benefit of the company and all that. As your glassy-eyed, slack jawed self nods in the affirmative (“how about a nice…football?”) Mr. Horse Hog proceeds to rain down a gargantuan load atop your already shit covered head. Not to worry, you’ll get laid off soon enough.

Fuck the five-day work week.

But what’s worse than your tyrannical boss are all these “rules” and “regulations” that come with the 21^st century workplace. No drinking? No sex with your co-worker in the bathroom and/or break room? And what about cocaine fueled group gropes on Friday? Nope. Non. Nyet. Pedantic bureaucrats just running wild over an increasingly impotent, epicene workforce. Sexual politics? Forget about it. You need genitalia for that. The office is like one giant, collective asshole waiting to get fucked. A thousand strong human centipede, if you will, with you as the cowering, catatonic caboose.

This was not always the case, mind you. What is now a place of piety and virtue was once a den of depravity. There was a time when drinking, womanizing, and all around scumbaggedry wasn’t just acceptable, it was damn near encouraged. All signs point to Mad Men being not at all pastiche and panache but a devastatingly accurate portrayal of what was unbelievably the norm. The office environment of the 1940′s, 50′s, and 60′s was a veritable Garden of Eden — or should I say, a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah — for the American working man. The only person drinking more on the job would be the manager, whose secretary you’d be sleeping with on and off since she’d started three months prior. Always at work. Always on the manager’s couch in his office while he was on lunch.

…drinking, womanizing, and all around scumbaggedry wasn’t just acceptable, it was damn near encouraged.

Said manager would usually be too drunk or preoccupied with the sexual harassment of other secretaries to notice. And if perchance he did pick up on the relations, it’d probably lead to some creepy scene akin to Roger Sterling’s half corpsin’ on top of the Doublemint Twin send-up. Your job would be quite safe, however; the indiscretion quite beside the point.

Nowadays getting caught with so much as a drop of booze will get you a two month unpaid exodus to the farm — treatment for “exhaustion” will be the word around the office. An affair with a co-worker? Gossip, Facebook fodder, and ultimately termination.

…getting caught with so much as a drop of booze will get you a two month unpaid exodus to the farm…

Same goes for office banter. Once upon a time when an underling or co-worker wasn’t performing up to snuff, they’d be called out and ridiculed and perhaps even sodomized. Lesson learned. Everyone moved on. Nowadays going so far as raising one’s voice in protest of another’s insubordination will land them in the doghouse with a demotion and 6 weeks’ worth of “sensitivity training.”

Photo credit: Marcello / www.marcello.iq.pl

If cigarettes are your thing… well good luck with that shit. The smoking employee is now public enemy number one. Detested by everyone from the CEO right on down to the janitor’s janitor, a smoker cannot even light up within 50 yards of his place of employment without fear of being fined or in some cases… sodomized! The entire block, sidewalk and all, is now cordoned off for people who don’t smoke, those who simply need to step out for some fresh air and a stretch. Smokers, meanwhile, are a block or two up, hiding behind street signs, looking over their shoulder as if in fear of being caught by the HS principle.

Eighty Years Later…

Truth be told, all of these changes are unquestionably for the better. The last 80 years have been a series of cultural shifts that essentially lay waste to all that was acceptable before. Miscreant behavior taken for granted one decade is verboten the next. As ethos go, so shall the office go. The politics inside the workplace should reflect the politics outside the workplace. This is a good thing! Just ask women or African-Americans or any human being that is not a white male. People shouldn’t be drinking, screwing, and getting sodomized on the job, anyway. It’s unsanitary!

Photo used with permission / iStockphoto.com

What is constant, and will forever remain so, is the five-day, 40-hour work week and the relationship between employee and employer. The Man is our third parent, armed with an umbilical chord that will never be cut, only growing stronger with time. And with today’s technology he’s up in our shit more than ever before; he knows where we are (Facebook check-ins), he knows what we’re doing (Twitter,) and he knows how to get a hold of us at all times (iPhone.)

The Man is our third parent, armed with an umbilical chord that will never be cut, only growing stronger with time.

So in celebration of the five-day work week and its 78^th anniversary, take a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come as a people. Look around you, take in the diversity of gender, race, age, etc. Take note that everyone is sober, not engaged in any kind of unseemly sexual activity, and still as ass ugly as yesterday. Good job! Now go dip your balls into the boss’ coffee while he’s in a meeting concerning the next round of layoffs…