Frugality

I have never been able to spend money with the reckless abandon of some of my peers.

There always seems to be some reason to save money rather than spend it. Over the many jobs that I have had, I have compulsively saved. In my current job (lucky that I am to have one) I am saving approximately 90% of what I am earning. This has gotten to the point that it feels like I am working for no actual reward. A bank balance becomes a meaningless number that rises and has no real consequence.

Why do I constantly avoid spending money? While the cliché of saving for a rainy day may ring true for me, I think it is a more complex process. Abstract rainy days are easily ignorable. What is not so easy to shrug off is predictable events in ones life that will require money. There is always something on the horizon that may need funds. This is even beyond recessionary scaremongering. We always find a reason to save.

Sometimes this frugality seems like an excellent idea. It is a practical application of forward planning and thinking. Yet at the same time, working and using up precious time for no real reward, or an imaginary one in the future is more than problematic. Money controls us in this way and we cannot escape its grasp while we allow it to dictate our lives. Money is simply a medium. When we earn it we should spend it and make those imaginary numbers mean something.

I am not saying that we should all drive ourselves into poverty with excess, simply that we should enjoy ourselves more while retaining our forward thinking.

-The English Student

Social Grotesque II

This week the grotesque was obvious from the international news to the streets.

Chinese etiquette and social niceties came under international scrutiny as a policeman died from alcohol poisoning while negotiating with local business people. Politeness demanded that the policeman equal his companions levels of alcohol consumption and this resulted in his death. It has also become international knowledge that many companies employ people that are greater capable of drinking in these occasions in China. Value it seems, is given to those that can consume the most. This consumption is overt, obvious and disgusting.

The streets of many major cities have been mimicking this pattern in the past week. The 'Christmas Rush' has begun, with thousands flocking to consumer centres. An absurd amount of money is being spent during every opening hour of every opening day, with many shops extending their hours in an effort to encourage the insane flurry of spending. The streets are literally jammed with people and there is no sign of this abating until at least the end of the year. The level of consumption again is overt, obvious and disgusting.

Each of these situations highlights more aspects of this social grotesque. While they may be in an effort to impress and help each other, the luxury of these situations is getting to a sickening level. We are glutting ourselves in the consumerist temples that we have created. It is becoming obvious that this consumption simply cannot be sustained. I have heard the theory that humans are one of the only animals on the planet that will stop eating or drinking when they are full, rather than say, dogs that will keep eating so long as their is food. Perhaps we can resist this urge on a personal level. But we are truly failing on a social level.

Which brings us to the major example of social grotesque this week: the failure of Copenhagen makes our failure all the more inevitable.

-The English Student

Behind the Scenes of the Service Sector

Working in the service sector has shown me two different types of consumer-company relationships.

In my first service related job I saw a very common company attitude. The organisation puts up a front to its costumers and pretends to care about their opinions and lifestyles. In actuality, they do not care. Working behind these apparently benevolent scenes highlights the hollowness of the whole process. Management does not care about the public, it cares about money. Management also does not care about employees, it cares about their ability to increase profits.

My second service related job highlighted a more subtle and altogether more sinister approach. In this case, the company really did seem to care. Behind the altruistic scenes of high customer satisfaction was an effort to create an environment of high employee satisfaction. Profit really did not seem to be the overriding principle of the company. Of course, this cannot be true. On some level, almost entirely unseen, the cold and calculating basis of business lurked in the recesses of the building.

But this taint was never fully embodied by any employee. Granted, the overall manager was more concerned with income than any other person in the organisation but even this person seemed to value profit for its ability to keep his staff employed and to help provide an excellent consumer experience. Maybe someone beyond this manager is to blame. The image of an overseeing tyrant at the base of these companies is a comforting one as it places the blame on an individual person. We could blame this person for greed and theorise that they lost their way in a capitalist system designed to help create an equatable world. I fear that there is a much more harrowing alternative. Organisations like this one seem to have developed traits that are no longer represented by its staff and are completely beyond their control. There is no shrouded master controlling the cogs of the machine.

In actuality, the machine we created is controlling us and in the process, our humanity is being consumed.

-The English Student