Dontcha sometimes wish

So a few of our elected employees were on the tube this week thumping their chests about how we need to re-write the current overtime laws so that employers don't have to pay people for the hours they work.

And I'm sitting there, watching this. 

And I'm thinking back to all the jobs I've worked (including my current one) where there were set protocols in place to diddle away any significant OT that anyone works, and realizing that each and every one of these talking heads makes close to a quarter mil/year with full benefits for what times out to about five months of going out to dinner on someone else's dime, accepting 'gifts' that someone else is paying for, and sitting at a desk and spending someone else's money. 

And I found myself thinking that it sure would be nice (as an amendment to our current constitution) if we could require ALL elected officials at the federal and state level to (as a part of their campaign, and regardless of party affiliation)  spend a year or two in a non-union warehouse anywhere in the country (though preferably in their constituency).  I think it would do them a world of good to know what a  'fall and you're fired' health plan is... To work in a physically taxing (and often demeaning) job with no medical coverage, no dental, heat stroke in the summer, frostbite in the winter, no vacation, no sick leave, no safety equipment or inspection,  no overtime (no matter how many hours you work in a week),  earning (and living on) eight and a quarter an hour or less and praying every day that you don't get injured because you know that (if you're lucky) you just be fired and crippled.

When I was doing that sort of work, we use to joke that at least the jail had decent medical coverage, because the company I worked for had a habit of pre-dating the termination papers of employees who were injured on the job, and then calling the police and claiming that said employee was disgruntled over their termination, and injured themselves while attempting to vandalize or burglarize their former employer.  (Every time I see a story on the news, or on the internet about someone who was injured in a similar way, I always hope that whoever the manager was at that site didn't make the poor bastard wait till after closing before calling an ambulance). 

So  that's what was waiting for me when I got out of college (and I was lucky enough to have experience with that sort of thing growing up, so I was able to adapt).   I hear it's only gotten worse in the last decade and a half.  

And that's assuming that they got a chance to go to college in the first place. 

Don't forget that we've got several hundred thousand coming back from the gulf, and from Afghanistan, and from half a dozen conflicts that didn't even make the evening news.   Some of these folks have been stop-gaped well past the limit of their original tour, and (in spite of what their recruiting officer told them going in) have few commercially viable skills coming out.  Some of these folks having spent close to a third of their lives in combat zones, and we can expect that they'll come home with all the health and re-integration issues that we have previous conflicts, plus a few new ones thrown in for good measure. 

Taking into account our society's already deplorable treatment of it's veterans (and for all the flag wavers out there, don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm not talking about your politically advantageous patriotism, but the cold hard reality of aftercare for something like this.  The necessary medical care, vocational and societal re-integration assistance, addiction treatment, etc that we should be giving these folks the second they step off the plane), do you really think these folks are going to get the help that they need, that they deserve, that they have earned?

Do you think these elected windbags are going to be the ones to take a salary hit to make that happen?  Or do you think they'll just point at the problem and blame the other guy?

And people want to know why the the younger generation seems to be either completely apathetic or chronically upset and depressed?

Coming back from years of service overseas to find nothing waiting for them but unemployment, debt, lies and bullshit. 

Or leaving college high on the false promises that they've been spoon fed their entire lives, humping it through the modern job market with a quarter million in debt on their shoulders, with a third or more of them not even able to find crappy warehouse work to scrape by on.

And these pompous douche bags talking about how spoiled and lazy and 'entitled' they are...

Hell, I'm surprised every day that these kids AREN'T out in the street rioting and torching off dumpsters, cars and buildings at random.

It seems oddly fitting that, as our country circles the bowl, the folks riding the top of the vortex can think of nothing more worthy to do with their remaining moments but deride the folks who have already been sucked down. 

And I take some small comfort in the knowledge that, for the most part, these windbags are so very ill equipped to deal with where this country will be in twenty years.