We’re at the pinnacle or just beyond it. A steady progression and career path is no longer yours for the taking and most certainly not your reward for sticking it out. Already the “vast sucking sound” of jobs fleeing to India has made you perk up and notice. You got a little edgy during that last round of layoffs. Sometimes, you feel secure, saying things like, “Americans can innovate. We’ll innovate our way out of this.” We won’t.

The boom led some of us to unbelievable and unearned position. Sure, we worked our asses off, but did we really deserve to be paid that much for such a lack of track record? Did the fact that we “get it” warrant our leapfrog ascendancy to the upper pay scales? If you look at the market, and don’t see jobs paying what you’re making for similar work, I certainly don’t believe that you’re going to see any real upward action by waiting around, either. The prices are, as they do when competition enters the market, falling. Capital, goods and tasks have been liberated to the forces and whims of markets, but labor has not.

The squeeze will continue for the self-managed: downward wages, decreasing opportunities. For the truly fucked, the ones who are laboring over our ever-cheaper consumer goods, they will be used up, too. When the next cheap labor source presents itself, the current workers will not be allowed to move with the jobs. Eventually, the fucking has to stop. But only when there’s nobody left to do the work cheaper.

That’s when the robots come in.

So what do you do now? Does Walmart hire people with no experience?
—-

Stuff your laptop bag under your seat on the bus. A long, languid ride over the bridge. Swinging lights of car headlights pass through the windows. Startlingly, they pass through you, too. The water below looks cold. A light drizzle makes the world look like it just went through a car wash. The fading light of the sun, just barely visible as pink hue behind the buildings along the horizon, reminds you that its a good day for soup.

At your stop, you try to grab your laptop bag, but your hand passes through it. It’s sitting below the seat, but you can’t gain a grip on it. You shrug and give up, turn to the open door and step down to the wet curb, feeling the sudden blast of chilly outside air on your face. The air smells vaguely good, almost like somebody sprayed sea mist air freshener, but as the bus revs its engine you catch a breath full of exhaust. The bus shelter is empty. You’re the only person around as the bus brakes pierce your eardrum with a sharp, squeaky hiss and cause you to recoil a bit at the surprise. The bus shudders up the block, and you look at the aquarium it creates. People’s heads bob as the bus hits a pothole. Inside, it looks warm

Turn left and walk forward. Your block looks empty, but somewhere, somebody is cooking something vaguely ethnic or at least exotic. Maybe Ethiopian. You can smell it. Cars passing by peer at you with yellow and red eyes, but it seems more out of curiosity than ill will. There’s a sale at McGuck’s hardware. Everything half off. Through the front window, an old man, the same old man you see every day, is making a key.

msp