I am not your associate

associate

a person with subordinate membership in a society, institution, or commercial enterprise

Source: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/associate

     I’m seeing this everywhere now, hearing it every single day over the ‘Interstore Audio monopolized Network’ broadcasting in every supermarket that I frequent. It started with Walmart of course, this referring to their grocery workers as ’associates.’     

     What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway, ‘associates’? That's the shit term Walmart uses to identify us.That is the word business people used to refer to  colleagues they know but who are not their friends. ‘Hello, this is Oswald, my associate. He will be breaking your kneecaps today’. 

     Words have power. There are many meanings attached to this word, but I think the one I've pasted at the top there best defines how our employers see us lowly minions today. By inference that implies we are really not part of the company; that we work here but we’re not part of the family, is that so?    

     That really burns me to hear that, every day. ‘Our meat associates would be proud to serve you’. Yes, except they’re not really one of us. What this says is that we're not as valuable to the Company as the CEOs sitting in their head offices. That our work doesn't matter when the reverse is true. Without us doing the grunt work, the Company would collapse into a disorderly mass. 

     I’m going to admit something right here; I’ve spent the last 19 years working in a supermarket, stocking the shelves and facing them to make them presentable in the morning so, when a customer comes into the store, it looks like a place where they might want to shop again. 

     I’m not doing this because the company appreciates it, oh no. Truth is as far as the company is concerned, whatever we do, however hard we work, it will never be enough. They will always want more. Which is fine; I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for the most selfish of reasons. Whatever I do on my job, it’s going to be something I’m proud to have my name on. Because I’ll tell you what, whenever they lay me off, and that’s a given, the only thing I’ll take away from that job will be the reputation I’ve built over the last 19 years.         

     I’ll tell you something else. I am not a goddamn ‘associate’. I will never be an associate. I’ve worked my ass off at my job. I’ve been un-fuck-up-isizing my workplace since the day I walked in the door. I’m a laborer, a night shift worker. I have been a member of my company’s so-called family for 19 years and I categorically refuse to be patronized or belittled in that manner. 

     And you can bet your corporate out-of-touch ass that I will see that put in writing when the next contract comes up. I will see it written in stone that we are not simply ‘associates’ of the company.