Some observations and reflections from my work

[里昂1121]

December 27th
Currently, I work at a Western restaurant that makes similar things to wraps. This place is really shady, with no actual continuous break times. The dishonest manager and capitalists say verbally that when it’s not busy and there are no orders, you can rest, but translated into reality, it means as long as there are orders and it’s busy, you can’t rest; moreover, when it’s busy and multiple orders come in at the same time, you need to put in even more effort to handle them, ensuring timely delivery so that delivery personnel can deliver on time without penalties or other issues. In other words, frequent bursts of orders in a short period require quick packing while managing multiple orders, which increases labor intensity; thus, the level of exploitation I suffer is actually increased, meaning my actual remaining working time is extended, and the absolute surplus value extracted by the capitalists from me also increases.

Furthermore, the capitalist running this place is very insidious. They make me do kitchen cleaning, marinating meat, cutting vegetables, and preparing ingredients. When I have free time, I also have to pack orders, and they even make me learn how to wrap wraps. It’s like one person doing the work of three, but I only get paid for one. Not only that, in the afternoon, I get a three-hour break, but in the evening, I go back to work from 5:30 to 10:30. After I finish marinating the meat, during peak hours, I have to go pack orders, and when I go back to work at night, I also hit peak hours, sometimes even delayed closing because foreign students come to eat late at ten or more, and there are orders, so I only finish work at 11 or even 11:30! This greatly extends the working day, and the capitalist is crazily extracting surplus value from me. I calculated that my actual free rest time in a day might be less than half an hour.

This morning, something very displeasing happened: an older delivery rider, probably in his fifties or sixties, who probably can’t read very well, took the wrong order—Meituan’s order was mistaken for Taobao Flash Sale. Later, a middle-aged rider came over and found his order missing, then started scolding loudly, saying how we were at fault, what we should do, pointing and criticizing wildly. I told him it wasn’t our responsibility, and the labels are separate for Meituan and Taobao, but he said we shouldn’t shirk responsibility. I was thinking that fines for late delivery are set by the monopolistic platforms like Meituan and Ele.me, which are used to control, exploit, and oppress riders, so I can understand being anxious about fines. But why is it our fault as workers who make and pack the orders? I was dissatisfied but didn’t say anything.

The dishonest worker re-made the order for him, and when I was packing it, I noticed the label was wrong and went to fix it. The person then started cursing and yelling wildly. It was peak time again, and I felt more and more frustrated. When he took the order and left, he loudly said that if anyone was to blame, it was the platform, and asked why we were being blamed. I almost wanted to say that the capitalist would fine you because you are late, and why blame us instead of them, but he had already left.

The store manager, who can be said to be predetermined, was laughing at this scene. I was very angry inside. I thought that the bourgeoisie uses such methods to divide and weaken the unity among workers, disguising the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, making it seem like internal conflicts among workers. I also thought that the happiest people in such situations are the bourgeoisie and their lackeys. Aren’t these enemies of ours most pleased to see us workers fighting among ourselves?

[里昂1121]

December 28th to 29th
These two mornings, I’ve been working alongside a strikebreaker. This person is extremely rebellious, an extreme lackey. Before I recruited anyone else, he was the only one in the shop, doing everything himself, working from 9:30 in the morning until 11 at night. Despite this, he doesn’t resent the capitalists and even says he plans to go back home and become a boss in the future. I also learned that he used to be a manager at a Chinese restaurant, but he ran away because the capitalists wouldn’t give him breaks. When asked if working so hard isn’t tiring, he said it’s fine, and that after I teach you (referring to me and another newly hired worker), you just go and do the work. Basically, this person is working desperately now so that in the future he won’t have to work, climbing up to a position of exploitation or as a lackey for the ruling class — he is a complete traitor to the workers. Economically, politically, and spiritually, he is.

Monday the 29th was especially busy. It was a workday, yet the orders still exploded. While packing, I casually looked at the addresses, and they were either in some commercial building or some university. I was very dissatisfied with this. Thinking about how people who casually order takeout for one meal every day are actually these disgusting parasites, these students who parasitize and enjoy life in the universities, and those wealthy petty bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie, and the ruling class, isn’t that right?

At noon, a customer called saying they didn’t receive their drink and wanted a refund. The stupid thing about this shop is that whoever leaks the food has to compensate the customer accordingly. The prices of the items are generally above fifteen, often twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty. If we really had to compensate, the workers’ wages for one hour or even two hours would be gone. This is a crazy exploitation of workers. The food that these disgusting parasites eat is made from the workers’ labor, the waiters prepare and pack the food; making it so they don’t have to move and just eat is still the workers’ labor, and delivery workers directly deliver the food to them. A worker might spend a huge amount of energy in just one hour to prepare and pack food for dozens of parasites, creating value for the capitalists that could reach six or seven hundred or even a thousand in just one hour, while the worker’s own hourly wage is only a fixed twenty-something or even less. Workers are exhausted from the intense effort and mistakes are inevitable, but instead, they have to pay out their own wages for an hour or more to compensate for the refunds of these disgusting parasites — this is naked plunder and exploitation.

[里昂1121]

Recently, I took four or five days off to go back and attend my sister’s wedding, leaving the shop short-staffed. The capitalist directly stepped in to fill in for the workers, working alongside them for about a week. Engels said that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are two completely different types of people. During the days I worked alongside the capitalist, I truly experienced and understood this statement; first, I was washing dishes in the back kitchen, and then the metal box above, probably because it was wet and not properly placed, fell and hit the back of my head. The capitalist was nearby doing his own work and saw me get hit, he immediately laughed out loud, pointed at me, and said that things must be put in order. I was speechless at the time and also thought that the bourgeoisie has no real sympathy for workers who get injured during labor, and might even take pleasure in the suffering and misfortune of workers.

In the following days, the capitalist taught me how to carve meat, vaguely saying that I should do it like playing the violin—very simple and not difficult; I immediately thought that I have never even seen a violin in real life, let alone learned to play one. I also thought about how this capitalist relies on exploiting and squeezing workers like me, using the sweat and blood we shed to live a life of daily luxury—eating spicy hotpot, high-end sushi, milk tea, coffee, cakes, and so on. Only he, this filthy parasite, has the money and time to learn and play instruments like the violin. I felt very dissatisfied and angry about this.

Later, I interacted with a newly arrived female worker. I learned that her grandfather owns a company. She was previously arranged by her grandfather to be a tutor but resisted this assignment, so she came to a big city to live with her mother and look for other work. Her previous job was because she was assigned to do crazy amounts of work by the workers’ saboteurs, which she was very unhappy about, so she resigned voluntarily. This worker has a rather complex mindset, which can be seen from her interactions with me. She thinks that the others here, including the boss, are easy to get along with and that the place is pretty good. She doesn’t realize that I and she are actually oppressed workers in this shop. She also often asks herself or the workers’ saboteurs whether she or they need to help me or do something for me. She also chats with the saboteurs about daily eating and drinking, revealing that she orders takeout two or three times a day. This shows she has petty-bourgeois mutual aid and sentimentalist ideas, and her economic status is still different from that of ordinary workers.

Yesterday, I learned about two new part-time workers: one used to run an internet cafe earning over ten thousand yuan a month, and the other was a bank manager. Now they are both unemployed and looking for work, saying that it’s very hard to find jobs now, and every industry is highly competitive. I thought that even the bourgeoisie or the petty bourgeoisie are going bankrupt and entering the ranks of workers, and the proletariat is continuously expanding. I also thought that when people from the former bourgeoisie enter the workers’ ranks, they inevitably bring with them reactionary bourgeois ideas, which can play a role in dividing and disintegrating the movement. We still have to坚持斗争.