Before man knew metropolitan cities, before skyscrapers were built, man used to
live in villages. Although simple and subtle, but still villages are capricious,
arbitrary, random, and unsystematic. It rose from the need. People needed
shelters so they built houses. People needed food, so they cultivated lands.
People needed to breed animals, so they grow farms, and so on. When all the
needs collected together, through ages, villages were forms. Generations passed
and new generations with new needs and life styles came. They need roads, need
infrastructure, need energy, need space, and many other things that a
non-systematic village cannot provide. That is when man settled and finally
decided to design a city. Cities were designed according to human needs. It was
an epso facto to have a systematic society for man to live in.
Newman has 20 years working at the same
factory. He started as an assistant clerk, and then got promoted by days till he
became a general manager. Whenever his company needed anything they ask him, and
he has the ability to fulfill everything they want. That is why they like him.
He has graduated from the faculty of Arts. His major was English literature.
However, since he started working in hi company, he never used his education in
nothing. He learns from work. He believes that education is experience. Every
one else in his company are the same. They found themselves working whatever
they do, because they found themselves working whatever they do.
Their jobs are not like Paul is an accountant, Peter is a lawyer,
and John is an engineer. It is more like we do what our supervisors ask us to
do. We do not know why. We do not know what our job descriptions are. We work
for money, and whatever grants us money is liable to be considered our job.
That made Frank; the company’s security
officer kills Madonna, the mistress of the company’s owner because she had
become a pain in his ass. Franz’s excuse was simple, I followed orders. I obeyed
my boss. Why blame me and not blaming soldiers who kill thousands of innocents
they do not know, just because they have to follow orders. Army is a job, a job
of following orders, simply because there is no specific goal for the soldier.
He is a tool in the hand of his commander. Franz regarded himself a loyal
employee. He was a tool in the hand of his owner. No one could say
“no” to his boss, or he will lose his job. Simply, because we work to fulfill
our own needs, money and sense of respect, we accept to be evil, because we are
selfish.
When Newman heard the story of Franz, he felt
like him. “what if my boss had asked me not Franz to kill that woman?” I cannot
kill a human being. But that is my boss’s orders. If I say no, he might fire me.
I need the job, actually, I need the money from the job. Not only the money, I
don’t think I can live without my job, it has become a part of me. My friends
identify me with my job. I am adapted with my office, my co-workers, and my
staff. “But, I cannot obey him in doing something wrong. Killing is
a sin.” Then what about exploiting, cheating, and selling junk products to the
companies’ customers all these years, wasn’t that wrong too.? Oh! I have no
values, I feel depressed. I hate my job.
I wish if I leave this village and live in a
city, planned and designed according to real human needs, not in an arbitrary
way. We just found ourselves working like that. I need to work within a society
believes in manpower, Society that is formed by human power, to benefit humans,
not to benefit corporations, or countries, or targets. We need jobs to be
identified even before companies are constructed. We need to know each and every
job description and have the right to choose that which agrees with our
characters and needs. We need common values that are applied in every post;
values like service, love, sacrifice, communication, peace, and care. It doesn’t
matter whether I am a doctor or a mechanic or a stockbroker as long as I
maintain these values in my job.
I don’t need a boss to dictate to me what to
do. I don’t need a job to force me to exploit and abuse my fellow man so that he
won’t deprive me my job. We need to be strong, powerful, we need to be a labor
force, organized and educated by society, and distributed to companies. We are
not loyal to our companies but to our values. We are not getting paid by our
companies but from our network. Companies hire us from our network; they pay the
network not us. We are not their slaves anymore. They have nothing to give us to
make us subordinate to them. Only through sticking to these socio-humanitarian
values and deepening in education one gets promoted. Only through love and
taking due care of the Other, one could be considered successful.
Newman left the factory. He left the
whole village, heading towards a factory in a new city called Community.