I QUIT

Today I had to quit.

The thought struck me as I approached the warehouse on my efficient and speedy bicycle with the wind behind me while gliding the corner in a pleasing way, the bicycle leaning in around the bend keeping momentum and without veering into the middle of the road endangering myself or other road users; I was in a good state of flow and riding high.

And it was then that the thought struck me, CRITICAL MASS I thought, that's what's wrong,  it's not happening (refer to my last post), it's impossible that there'll ever be the critical mass necessary to stand up for our rights in the warehouse, therefore we have no means to assert ourselves, we're just being consumed by the industrial corporation until we get wasted, exhausted, then discarded. There have been casualties, I realised as I lifted my bum off the saddle riding over the speed bumps through the car park, once a dead body was discovered in the car park, a worker had gone outside to rest and was later found dead in his car, I remembered.  What will become of me? There was clarity in the early morning summer sunshine, the end result of our input in this system is that people will suffer.  We are being pushed to work until we are rendered incapable,  and then when the point of exhaustion is reached we are rendered useless.  I have known all this for some time, these thoughts weren't new, the epiphany was that we really are powerless to generate the critical mass necessary to engineer change; to command a living wage and forge a system in which all workers are treated humanely. I have two options I was thinking as I fiddled with the lock to secure my wheels in the bike shelter; to stay, get wired up to a voice activated machine by a head set, a heavy and cumbersome wristband and a scanner attached to one of my fingers, a system in which I would need to talk to the machine that would then keep track of my picking rate and evaluate my performance or to leave.

So I gave one week's notice in writing to the agency and announced my decision to my co workers;  wonderfully hard working and humble and responsible people that I've shared life with over the past couple of years, I'll miss them.

The realisation (English spelling this time for ZAK) that I needed to get out or be consumed by the industrial machine was sudden and unforeseen this morning, I must be responsible for myself, and in this situation the most responsible thing is to get out to save myself, and  it had better be today, no time for delay.  I should explain why it is that working under these conditions is unsustainable.

Sustainability relies on a system that is ongoing, the flow on energy should be cyclical, in that  the energy that gets spent somehow gets fed back in to the system so that regeneration can take place.

How is my energy refreshed when I'm paid less than a living wage?  Like many other operatives I need to supplement my income with other work during evenings and weekends, all my time, my life is taken up with work, time that should be spent with family and friends, recreation time.  There's a notice up on the board today about the Bank holiday weekend.

It gave us an option to receive pay for the bank holiday by using up pay accrued payed holiday. So a bank holiday is not a bank holiday, just a day when  we don't get a shift,  Just shoot me, I thought as read the notice. This is so wrong. It's immoral and inhumane and I can't remain in this situation, I quit to save myself.  What means do I have under this level of exploitation to re-energise?  No rest days for warehouse operatives. Pay that is less than a living wage, is a death sentence, a slow death in which energy is sapped out of us by a drip drip effect, one underpaid shift at a time.

I quit to save myself.