the solution 1.0

What makes me feel better, is my problem. But I keep treating it as the solution. So my problem keeps getting bigger.

As a worker, many situations have made it clear to me, that labor unions are necessary. As a manager, many situations have made it equally clear to me that as a body, the overall mechanism of organized labor is grossly exploitative of the system and basically missing the point, on a lot of levels.

In one of my sort of middle management positions, the hand of higher-ranking management sometimes forced me, to push my working (non-union) crews seven to ten hours into a shift without a meal break. I lost arguments with my bosses on this subject. And I was astonished by the inability of these “union haters”, to see that their own actions were creating even more of a need for labor unions. I would even explain it to them, plainly: “I’m as annoyed with the union as you are… So let’s stop being the reason that they need to exist!” They'd brush this kind of logic off the table with a roll of the eyes, and no more of a verbal response than a sarcastic: “So anyway…”

That type of attitude is out there, in full force. It’s not going away. Ever. Thus, neither will the need for labor unions ever go away.
See where I’m going here? We don’t just make our own problems. We make them worse. We make them permanent.

It’s like if we react to a fly problem in our home, by opening more windows and leaving food out to rot on the table. We wouldn’t do that, right?
It’s like if you find yourself on thin ice at work. So you start missing shifts, to make time to stalk your boss’ wife. Probably not gonna stabilize your position.
It’s like if some Muslims hated America enough to kill a whole bunch of our civilians, one day. And we reacted to that by invading an unrelated Muslim nation, launching an endless offensive crusade that would ultimately drive toward every Muslim on Earth wanting to kill all of us. We’d never do something that illogical.

Don’t get me wrong. Many union locals that I’ve worked with are shamefully missing the point. Union protocols and regulations exist to shield employees from unfair and unsafe work conditions. Business is business. Therefore business is brutal. So employees need this kind of protection. However, so many of their shields against abuse have been re-forged into weapons of laziness, that some labor unions have truly become synonymous with laziness.

But this is all sort of metaphoric. Just examples - leading to a point. I really don’t give a fuck, either away about labor unions. I’m just talking about finding the ability to step back out of your own bullshit, enough to see the big picture. And then see your self objectively in that big picture.
See things your way. But not just your way.
Get what’s yours… But only what’s rightfully yours.
Take advantage of what the system has to offer, without exploiting the system into a deliberately misinterpreted series of loopholes fashioned to accommodate laziness.
If you had the ethics to refrain from manipulating everything into your favor, and just keep your side of the street clean…
What would your place in the big picture look like?
It might look like you’re a part of the solution.
…and not the problem.

What if it were just that simple?

It just may be.