Being an employee is not worth it any more

There is almost certainly nothing more depressing than being a worker in present-day South Africa, where the economy is nothing but more doom and gloom.

We basically work for the petrol that gets us right back to work every working day, just to barely get by on debit order day.

Companies have told us that this sad state of affairs for workers is not their doing, but that it is the consequence of a global pandemic.

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Fast-forward to 2023 and the lazy call it a hangover from the ripple effects of Covid. The honest acknowledge it to be runaway inflation.

The most brutally honest call it what it is: the effects of corruption that chipped at the economy, bit by bit, until bite-sizes made no sense and the corrupt now feed at a buffet in full view of a starving country.

Yet, yearly, 1 May is about the workers. But workers are disillusioned by the pittance they call their earnings. And salaries continue to dwindle in real buying power. This is our new normal!

Despondency captures the room when I sit with my professional friends. Being an employee is not worth it any more, but the consistency of the salary keeps us locked in. I cannot reconcile celebrating workers on one specific day when they picnic in hell on all the other days for the remainder of the year.

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It boggles the mind. It’s not the day that must change, but the conditions of work must be addressed. Workplaces at the very least need to be healthy places to be in as people spend approximately eight hours of their day in them for five days a week and 52 weeks a year. This is what needs to be improved.

Life is already a hurdle and a half and we don’t all work at what we love; but we have to do something. The everything around this something cannot kill us slowly – and we must in turn celebrate this once a year.

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