"Its not the system that's bad, its just those darned bad apples."

For those of us at the bottom, all that "bosses taking advantage" stuff is just the normal cost of getting a meager paycheck that doesn't quite cover the bills. Its just ... normal.

Capitalist realism is fuck.

People with some type of certification or recent technical degree or academic degree, if they're young or single, or don't have any other responsibilities except to themselves actually could tell their bosses to fuck off and go find a better job somewhere. But they are in the minority.

I stocked shelves in a grocery store and the boss fucked me over? Great, I'll just quite my stocker job and checks notes get another stocker job for a boss that is equally likely to fuck me over. OR... I could just keep my head down and do what I need to do to get by for as long as I can get away with it. Because trying to look for work is a fucking nightmare unless you know people or stumble into random shit.

Like my current and last job were total flukes. One, my wife told me about after she mentioned I was looking for work to some of her people (but it was temporary) and the current job I literally got because I saw a note in the window of my local post office. Neither of those jobs was something I was looking for specifically, or would have EVER found by accident, and all the "normal" jobs found by searching for stuff online resulted in fuckin' naught all.

No phone calls, no emails, no letters saying "Hey, thanks for applying but you didn't get the job"... nothing.

That shit is absolutely terrifying. I'm old enough to feel the "middle aged white guy" economic anxiety that used to be nothing more than a concept 10~15 years ago.