Member-only story
The System Works (For Some)
Larry worked at an office where the boss was an asshole. His boss was vulgar, disrespectful, incompetent, and was constantly cheating workers of their rightful wages and benefits. He was a jerk to everybody, but he was especially cruel to Larry, even though Larry was one of his better workers. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t been born in the U.S., perhaps it was his very competence and intelligence that made the boss look like a moron slacker by comparison. You see, the boss didn’t get his position by working hard or by making great decisions, he got it because he was the owners’ son. Life is like that.
It’s not that the boss — we’ll call him Devon — was cruel to everybody. He was surrounded by a group of buddies (all of them male) who always agreed with Devon and who also treated everyone else as inferior. Especially Larry.
When Devon had been made boss a few years back, Larry welcomed the chance to have a fresh start with a new boss. He had worked hard for the old boss for years and never felt he got any recognition or a fair cut from the company’s successes which he had contributed to. But as The Who once said, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Or as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Devon was even worse than the last boss.