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Work and Labor, "I think we should be men first, and subjects…

- - - - A scene showing a dystopian and creepy advertisement, showing the contrast between the false pretense that you will be "happy" there. In reality, work conditions are harsh, unlivable, and inhumane.
    - - The exploitation of workers of which is modern indentured servitude is the harsh reality; sneaky contracts that trick people in becoming slaves to a mega-corporation with no legal out.
      - Though nowhere near as extreme, the first mega-corporation I thought of upon first seeing this was Amazon. Harsh working conditions with minimal bathroom breaks, intense workplace surveillance, and a countless number of employees in big giant warehouses all correlate to WorryFree in its mega-capitalistic dystopian nature.
    - - A depiction of these "equisapiens" in Sorry to Bother You
      - A great real-life example of this is exclaimed in the article, AI could force 11 million US workers into new careers by 2035. This article depicts the scary yet very realistic future that AI has on many jobs nationwide. The pretense that "AI completes the job more efficiently" has led many corporations to follow the footsteps toward artifical intelligence, already displacing many workers in a number of fields.
  - - - To expand upon this, Covert is referring to the increased requirements of which makes it harder for people in need to get the basic necessities that should be a right to every human being. To me, this is a capitalistic dystopia, as these basic health needs are reliant on the performance of one's work.
    - - I feel that this quote in specific highlights the surreality of it all; in a country where we are free and are supposed to be given basic human rights, corporate government greed to save federal funds has poisoned many programs that continue to provide to less and less to people in need, simply because they are deemed "unworthy."
    - - A connection can be made with Gen Z puts high priority on jobs with meaning, purpose, but sees daunting hurdles, is the potential in providing another obstacle that many Gen Zers are faced with when it comes to pertaining a job with meaning. Another factor that was not mentioned in the Harvard article was the fact that the need to meet work requirements may have often required jobs that the system would have wanted Gen Zers to take, not extrinsic jobs that the people wanted to take.
        
        The instantaneous need for a job in order to meet work requirements criteria may call for more "temporary jobs" rather than a permanent, established one. This introduces another potential source as to why these jobs may not be as in demand as they can be.
  - - - Note the wording of "should," providing a sense of uncertainty that AI brings to the job market. 11 million people, that is, 6.5% of the current labor force, will need to find new careers as a way to adapt to this newfound automated competition of artificial intelligence.
        
        I can see a connection being made to Bartleby. I say this because when Bartleby was first hired, he was doing everything on a high and efficient level with an almost robotic-like performance level. As he was introduced, he received special treatment and the narrator saw the others to be more "dispensable." In a way, the AI in this scenario would be Bartleby; favored by the authority, efficient in his work, but unreliable in the end.
      - I find it quite dystopian and unreal that that many jobs are being lost to AI in the first place. It leaves many uncertainties for the job market in the future as AI's growth and progression is quite unpredictable.
  - - - Turkey and Nippers seem to be rated based on their efficiency of work, rather than their loyalty and quality of work. Despite the characters pertaining to years of experience in the office, they were treated like nothing when Bartleby came into the scene, all because he was seen as "more valuable" than others, purely due to his performance.
      - "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." - Henry Thoreau
        
        I think this quote perfectly sums up how to treat big corporations and businesses. Always remember to remain true to yourself, make sure not to make the company/corporation you are working for your life. More times than not, a worker (such as Nippers and Turkey) in a company is more dispensable than one thinks, and it is important to remain vigilant and be prepared for any possible shortcomings.
      - Even Bartleby himself experiences a lay-off due to changes in administration, despite him being a hard-working employee.
        
        "The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration."
        
        Of course, because of his reliance he pertained to the Dead Letter Office, once he was laid off, it set him off on a mental battle that unfortunately won in the end.
- - - - Just my thought, I feel that there needs to be a level of protection as well as regulations to keep AI from taking over jobs of this volume. AI at this level is still a relatively "new" concept, but I feel that there is still time to revert back and implement changes that will protect Americans from lay-offs and the dire need to switch careers.
- - - - This simple phrase is used repeatedly by Bartleby to express his lack in desire to do these monotonous tasks.
      - "We will not be overlooked...phones down!"
        
        I find this stand against undesirable work compensation from Sorry to Bother You to relate closely to "I prefer not to." Both pertain to a rebellion against their employers. Though Bartleby's intentions are unclear, both stand for a call of change in their own ways.
  - - - A phrase that runs RegalView: This is another great example and quotation from these readings, as it encourages monotony, and strips the corporate setting from personality and humanity. This is especially true as we see an elderly lady mourn her husband's death to cancer. Cash, conflicted upon hearing this, "sticks to the script" and continues to try to sell the product to her.
      - Though these two quotes come from two different sources pertaining to two different purposes, they perfectly conflict one another in the context of corporate defiance as a form of protest.
        
        The narrator asks Bartleby to "Stick to the script," to which Bartleby always responded with, "I prefer not to."
  - - - These jobs fall into the fields of but not limited to the following:
        •Retail
        •Cooking
        •Behavioral Sciences
        •Medicine
        •Teaching
    - - Though not as directly, this "call for change" follows the same need to move a different path forward such as in Sorry to Bother You.
      - Rather than Gen Zers becoming subjects to corporations, working jobs of which fuel the corporations themselves, this generation advocates for work fueling society and the people themselves, not faceless suits. This follows Thoreau's advice of becoming a human before becoming a subject.
  - - - Thoreau did this as a peaceful protest against slavery and the Mexican-American war. He believed that paying these poll taxes would imply that one would support these issues.
    - - Thoreau advocated for more peaceful forms of protest.
        
        A connection can be made to Sorry to Bother You and more indirectly to Bartleby.
        
        In Bartleby, we do not know what Bartleby's intentions are or why he may have stopped working and cooperating with the narrator. However, I feel that he perfectly depicts a form of peaceful protest (whether intentional or not), unwanting to work in order to stand for what one believes in.
        
        Though peaceful only to a certain extent in the movie, Sorry to Bother You also follows a peaceful protest, as a union, organized by Squeeze, stand infront of the RegalView building with signs and verbal chanting in order to advocate for greater pay raises and benefits. However, towards the end of the movie (and understandably so), the government began to take a more aggressive stance against people of the union, causing the people to shift from peaceful protests to more violent ones.
- - - - Good examples of this includes:
        •"Amanda Pierce, in the cubicle to your right, has a six-year-old son named Jamie, who is autistic. Her cubicle is plastered from top to bottom with the boy!s crayon artwork - sheet after sheet of precisely drawn concentric circles and ellipses, in black and yellow. She rotates them every other Friday. Be sure to comment on them."
        •"Barry Hacker's wife was two months pregnant at the time, and lingered in a coma for half a year before dying. It was a tragic loss for Barry Hacker. He hasn't been himself since. Barry Hacker's wife was a beautiful woman. She was also completely covered. Barry Hacker did not have to pay one dime But his dead wife haunts him." (note referencing work benefits in midsft of tragic lore-telling)
        •"Kevin Howard sits in that cubicle over there. He is a serial killer, the one they call the Carpet Cutter, responsible for the mutilations across town. We're not supposed to know that, so do not let on.... Kevin Howard does not let any of this interfere with his work. He is, in fact, our fastest typist." (though he is a serial killer, that is okay since he is a productive worker!)
        
        Notice the casual tone that is set in the dialogue, as well as how quickly the person giving the tour moves on after giving such harsh backgrounds; I find this to amplify the workers' insignificance..
      - I find there to be a strong connection with Sorry to Bother You and Orientation as they follow the same pretense that CEO of WorryFree, Steve Lift, follows, of which the workers are just "numbers" to him, so insignificant due to the sheer size that each individual person is replaceable and "does not matter." This is especially proven true when he states that "there will be millions" of these Equisapiens of whom will have "their own culture."
  - - - I feel that this satirical addition to the Orientation of which expresses the dispensability that many workers face in a real-life setting is also found at RegalView and WorryFree. In both settings, companies pertain to a high volume of employees, to the point where each employee is dispensable and would not cause a dent in the business' function. To an employee, the company means the world; to the company, that employee means a grain of sand.
- - - - "It's been one day since the viral celebrity leak to the world, new scientific achievements made by Worryfree and their genius CEO, Steve Lift, which caused WorryFree stocks to sky rocket."
        
        Notice the wording of:
        •scientific achievements
        •genius
        
        These words are twisted and warped through the sharing of social media; it shows the influence the media has on twisting a story to make it "look at certain way." Though it is true that this technically is a "scientific achievement," the media fails to acknowledge that it is a twisted and inhumane one.
  - - - This quote from Orientation follows the same idea of the satirical monotony of "sticking to the script" that is found in many real life settings of big corporations.
- - - - This quote from The American Work Ethic connects especially well to the setting of WorryFree. We see ethics get thrown completely out the window when it comes to WorryFree workers. In the movie, we see the ultra rich having nice extravagant parties at Steve Lift's home, all while the poor and in-need WorryFree workers are locked in a room, stripped of their humanity (literally and figuratively). Similar to real life (as demonstrated in The American Work Ethic), the poor are faced with grueling requirements to be granted the most basic needs, all while the rich get to have extreme tax exemptions and other "special treatments."
  - - - Though not as evil as Equisapiens, the real-life equivalent to these "work horses" include both the implementation of AI in the workplace (used to maximize output and increase profits), as well as the implementation of off-shore work found overseas, of whom receive much less pay than those working locally.
      - Though much less exaggerated, the same can be said as an attempt of "justification" that comes from the requirement that the lower class must prove that they are "American enough" to have their basic needs met in The American Work Ethic. Both, though one a satirical extreme, pertain to an attempt of justification in the face of immorality.
- - - - In contrast, parents in Denmark receive:
        •Unconditional cash benefits for each of their children
        •Universal health coverage
        •Guaranteed paid leave
    - - As per the findings in the article written by Alicia Wallace, these big corporations shamelessly replace millions of workers with a more "cost effective solution," that is AI. This has the potential to push many of these displaced workers into the lower class, causing a greater inequality between social classes.
    - - I think this quote from Civil Disobedience perfectly connects to the entirety of the article, The American Work Ethic. The only way to implement change in this scenario is to change an entire team of people with those who pertain a fair and grounded conscience. The Trump administration, as the article states, repeatedly tries to implement limits and requirements on the lower class, making it harder to get access to many basic needs programs. However, a complete change in this administration would allow for those with a more equal outlook to allow for and potentially lessen the gap between the lower and upper class, and make the middle class a more common reality for many.