You’re a Terrible Co-Worker, but I Envy Your Laziness
We’re paid the same, yet you always do the least. How in the name of capitalism is that right?
A spoonful of scorn, a touch of anger, and a smidge of smug self-congratulations — these are the ingredients you stir inside me when I see you idly waiting for your time to leave. Sometimes I can feel your gaze on my back, lurking as I do the job we’re both assigned to do better and faster than you ever will. It took me a while to figure out, though, that there’s another ingredient to this resentment cocktail: envy.
I don’t know you. We only interact because we work the same job in the same establishment. But when you ask me for help — or when you don’t, and my managers tell me to go and help you anyway — it’s difficult not to struggle with those feelings. Helping you is extra work for which I won’t earn more money, but I still feel a weird sense of pride knowing that I’m useful, knowing that my managers consider me valuable enough to teach you. Then you clock out the minute your shift is supposed to end, and anger consumes me.
How are we paid the same (very minimum) wage? I ask myself. I ask it often. We signed the same contract, but I somehow work twice as much as you, if not more. I wish I didn’t think this way, but when we’re lucky enough to be…
