Metamorphosis of slaves

I had a very long talk with my boss. I did share the conversation with some of my colleagues and they were totally astonished that I pulled of such a feat. What was the talk all about? Well, I refuse to put myself in an I-have-no-choice situation… I asked for pay rise and complained about over-worked. And when I said complain… I really mean complain.

I shall not go into the details but one of the many things I told my boss was that things have changed; that I am not like her. To my surprise, she agreed and told me that she is aware of this perspective. She told me she could see it in her children.

Indeed… things have changed; particularly amongst the modern slaves living in the urban area of this country. In my zewtpinion, the current modern slaves population is generally segregated into a few generations…
The True Slaves Generation… To me, they are usually aged 35 and above and are very much infected with the I-must-work-very-hard-and-die-for-the-company virus. They believe that hard work is the only way to success and success is measured by way of status and monetary rewards. They only know how to say yes to the company and bosses, never dare to voice out any grievances and their worth lies in their work. They think they are sacrificing themselves for the betterment of their family not knowing that their family may also be sacrificed at the same time, metaphorically speaking. That is, if they do have a family in the first place. Because of their I-must-work-hard mentality, they will instil the same to those below them… us…

Most of us here; aged 24 – 34, we are The Transitional Generation. We are stuck between the need to work hard in order to support our lifestyle and the need to not work so hard in order to have a lifestyle. Basically, we still carry a bit of the gene from the preceding generation but at the same time, we are also painfully aware that hard work does not necessary guarantee success. Further, we have a very different definition of success, and we look at the path to success from a different perspective.

We are constantly in a predicament of wanting to leave our job because we are so fed up and angry at the bosses and/or company but never truly get around doing it. We suffer severely from the I-have-no-choice syndrome. Some of our friends did make it big doing their own things, but we just can't bring ourselves to follow their footstep because we are too afraid to venture out of our comfort zone. Also, some decide to be modern slave in the name of ‘glamour’ due to a certain type of slavery.

Next is the generation hovering in the horizon, I call them… The New Breed. A few souls of this generation were seen a few years back and their numbers are growing. Made up mostly of urban population, work to them is just… work. Hard work is slowly being removed from their vocabulary and if you were to ask them to put in a few hours of over time, you will probably not have them as colleague very soon. This is real… I am hearing more and more stories where a new modern slave was asked to work past their official office hour for a few days and before you know it, they handed in their resignation already.

I foresee that this new breed will soon form the next generation of modern slaves. Let’s look at the current pre-slave population, those in their late teens, like the children of my boss. Despite not having made their first cent, they are already having ‘pocket money’ as high as a thousand a month, or more. I don’t even want to go into how they spend their money. This does not include a car and possibly even a condo if their parents are from out of town.

Brought up in such environment and with parents continue to be ever willing to over-provide, do you think The New Breed will slave at a job for a puny pay? Sorry for being too judgemental but I doubt it. Like I said earlier, the signs are already showing, some of them are already giving us glimpses of things yet to come.

But I think it is a good thing. It’s about time the exploitation of the labour force in this country morph into a better form.

Zewt supports the call to free burma, participant #2153. Come, join the stats. Post up the banner and make it your ARK.