A big part of my job involves creating requests to send to other departments within the company. It’s a relatively simple process that sometimes involves a little babysitting on both ends. With the customers (who are both internal and external business clients), I have to coach and wheedle them into providing information that’s relatively easy to obtain if you’re not a lazy bastard who thinks I have psychic powers. With the departments receiving the requests, I have to convince them that sometimes a little extra work is necessary, and that it’s quicker to simply do this work rather than to spend two hours bitching about how you shouldn’t have to do it.

Like I said, it’s a relatively simple process that I’m trying to keep simple, but the main challenge is two separate groups trying to make it as complicated as possible, and they both do this by invoking the old fallback concept of “it’s not my job.”

I am so sick of “it’s not my job.” It’s such a selfish, inconsiderate waste of everyone’s time when the alternative is really so much easier. It’s lazy is what it is, and while I am a huge fan of being in a pair of fat pants before 6pm and am aware that this may seem a bit disingenuous, I assure you that laziness is something I abhor. Look, if you’re going to work, then work. Show up on time, do the job, and do it right. Don’t dick around all day thinking of ways to avoid the reason you’re there. For as much effort as some people put into doing nothing, they could just do the work they’re paid to do and make it easier on the whole. It’s not even difficult. We get to sit down all day, for chrissakes! We sit in our climate-controlled environments and stare at screens, never doing anything more strenuous than fast-walking to the bathroom. Of course, those of us who walk fast are the ones who realize there is work to do, so maybe the previous sentence is moot.

Speaking of work, has everyone seen the 53% Guy? He’s one of a few people posting their opposition to the Occupy Wall Street protests, and their points are the same: they worked hard and the protestors didn’t, so everyone should quit whining.

Despite my feelings that 53% Guy is full of shit (wait, you worked 60 to 70 hours a week to pay way your way through college and you were also a Marine? Dude, haven’t you heard of the GI Bill?), I sort of see where he and his ilk are coming from. On a basic level, they’re coming from the same place as I am when I complain about lazy people at work. However, on a larger, more complex level, they’re also the lazy people themselves, as they completely subscribe to the “it’s not my problem” concept.

Fine, you worked. You probably worked very hard and for a long time and what wealth you have (no matter how small, as all of these people are quick to point out because their opinion is more legitimate if they’re poor) was mostly of your own making. No one’s arguing that, nor are we saying that this is something to be ashamed of. What 53% Guy and his team fail to realize, though, is that Occupy Wall Street doesn’t end at the extremely selfish point of Your Own Personal Wealth. It’s not about that. I don’t blame Wall Street for my crappy job. I don’t blame Wall Street for a checking account balance that, while pretty respectable and purely based on my own hard work, can’t seem to go beyond the amount I want it to in order for my butthole to stop clenching every time I pay bills. This is not to say that the butthole clenching is necessary; it’s not. But I know what it is to be poor and I know what it is to be broke, and in my head, no amount will ever really be enough. This is not Wall Street’s fault, and this is not the point of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

The point of the Occupy Wall Street protests is to publicly and in great numbers disagree with the out of control corporate greed that governs this country and destroyed our economy, unchecked and unpunished. It’s not about working hard or having a nest egg or living below one’s means. It’s about standing up and saying that the kind of selfishness inherent in the people who rule this country using dishonest and illegal policies is not right, and that 99% of the people in this country do not benefit from it in any way.

The point is not, as I’ve seen from dozens and dozens of shitheaded college kids on the Internet, getting a college degree that your parents, who were smart enough to work hard and save money, paid for, nor is it working part time and driving a cheap car. It’s not about being hugely privileged without even the faintest understanding of how lucky you are. Despite what these assholes profess to believe, none of this guarantees an individual exemption from the 99%, and I would expect someone who is college-educated to be better at math.

It’s obvious that writing signs and posting them on the Internet doesn’t come with an IQ or life experience requirement, but these pieces of shit can come talk to me once they’ve been dickslapped by life about a hundred times. That’s life’s job, and in my experience, it has never once tried to be lazy about it.