Before February 2nd, I never imagined that so many things would happen on this day. Originally, I was just humiliated because of my low education level and could only be a laborer. The store manager deprived me of the right to carry electronic devices freely. When I resisted, he fired me and deceived me into signing a resignation voluntarily. I just wanted to argue with the store manager, demand compensation and wages. When the police arrived, I thought I could use them to demand my wages, and I even mistakenly got into the police car under the pretext of labor dispute mediation, and went to the police station with them. I didn’t expect that once inside the police station, it would be like the gates of hell. After entering, the police and the store manager colluded, ignoring my legitimate demand for wages, claiming it was outside their jurisdiction, and instead accused me of provoking trouble (a different version of hooliganism, a fabricated crime created by the police to facilitate fascist rule), intending to imprison me for 15 days. Faced with this threat, I ultimately made this extremely humiliating compromise. On the way home, a sense of unwillingness and resentment surged in my heart. I thought about how many blood and tears of workers are behind such skilled tactics, and I truly want to completely eliminate those predatory beasts. Therefore, I wrote this article to tell my story of this struggle, why I fought this battle, and to warn everyone to pay attention to certain things.
A few months ago, I was still a worker aristocrat working in a public institution, working only 1 to 2 hours a day, earning a salary far exceeding that of most laborers in this city, living a life of indulgence and enjoyment as a exploiter. Under such a life, even if I return to the forum, I cannot understand the suffering of the people and fight for it. Instead, for a long time, I regarded the forum as my backup. Not learning or believing in Marxism to view myself or society. I am quite fascinated by the various spiritual opiates of the bourgeoisie, spending a lot of my free time on these things. But the various labor experiences I encountered on the forum made me realize that I am living this kind of life—working less and earning more as a worker aristocrat. This is because I am parasitically living off the workers who work more and earn less, and I also feel deeply unfair when I see my superiors in life forcing themselves to work hard so that daily wage workers can work desperately. According to everyone’s analysis, I learned that my job has not yet involved directly or indirectly suppressing workers, and I am well aware of the hypocrisy and disgust of bourgeois social interactions, so I do not participate much in them. Everyone thinks that compared to the worker aristocrats they know, I am more like a university student living parasitically supported by the bourgeoisie. With everyone’s help, I have realized how rotten my life state is. If I do not break away from this state, it is inevitable that I will follow the party line and, on the contrary, take the route of the worker aristocrats to suppress the people. Under such circumstances, I submitted my resignation letter to the public institution, went to another city to try to become a worker, and aimed to change my situation through labor.
Because my parasitic lifestyle in the past made my body extremely bloated and overweight, it became very difficult to find a job. Many shops refused me because they required custom work uniforms. Even the shops that I could get an interview with, I was fired because my physical activity was too slow. There are only about three places where I could accept work, the first being a hotpot restaurant, a wok chef, and I was fired in less than two hours. The second was also a hotpot restaurant, but in a buffet style, and I was fired after one and a half days. The third was a Japanese fast-food restaurant, which was the culprit that almost landed me in jail.
That third company was particularly strange at the time. The labor contract signing was especially troublesome, not to mention, but the person in charge who hired me said that the place I was supposed to work was not the one I applied for, but a slightly more southern location. I believed him, but when I arrived at the workplace, I realized I had been deceived. It was supposed to be only ten minutes away, but it took me an hour to get there. However, considering that the working hours there were still reasonable, ending at 8:30 p.m. so I wouldn’t miss too much of the reading club, I finally gritted my teeth and agreed to work there. But because I had lived a life of being served and not needing to do anything for too long, I lacked household chores, and I made many small mistakes when I first started. Moreover, I had two thoughts while working: one was to master the skilled worker route, thinking that if I couldn’t do the work well, I shouldn’t talk to others and wouldn’t earn respect, which was actually avoiding the propaganda work I should do as a Marxist learner, only thinking about taking the path of least resistance, thus heading towards servitude. The other thought was that I would nostalgic about my old lifestyle, hoping to avoid work whenever possible, completely wanting to escape labor and unwilling to be a lifetime worker. These two thoughts seemed contradictory on the surface, but in terms of not wanting to follow the forum’s discipline and principles, they were consistent. As a result, I became very detached from everyone on the forum while at work, leading to situations like when I washed dishes just to prove I was working, without caring about cleaning the dishes properly, which resulted in residue and grease inside the bowls, so others had to help me clean them before putting them into the sterilizer. During this process, my coworkers suffered greatly, often having to clean up my messes. This behavior of dragging down coworkers made others less willing to believe what I said, greatly increasing the difficulty of propaganda. Moreover, I myself didn’t want to promote anything, constantly reminiscing about those past pleasures with cards, the Three Kingdoms, digital products, and other indulgences, and I felt unable to discuss anything seriously. Looking at the results, the main reason for my failure was entirely due to my inability to completely break away from my old thoughts and lifestyle habits. I still hoped to find a job and shed the label of parasitic laborer. However, although I didn’t think much about ideological struggle during work and didn’t fully identify with the proletarian lifestyle, I developed a new understanding of the disgust towards factory bosses and traitors. Due to my very poor relationship with the store manager and skilled workers, I realized to some extent that working is a place of intense class struggle.
In the past, did huajige receive the wages after being fired?
Signing a labor contract is particularly troublesome. Can you share some experience with everyone? There are still many students on the forum who haven’t participated in work and need to understand the situation.
This situation is more like the other party posted the interview location on the recruitment app without mentioning the workplace location. Next time, you should pay extra attention.
Did huajige think about these when feeling lazy during work? In this kind of collaborative work, if you slack off, you only increase the burden on other workers. This is actually harming others and benefiting oneself. Laziness should not be used as an excuse to add tasks to coworkers; otherwise, it becomes parasitism on coworkers.
Yes, I do, and I even asked for it for others.
Those so-called formal companies all require your household registration book, and you also need to prove you’re working in this city (residence permit, resignation certificate). At first, they didn’t even let me sign the employment contract, and only later did they reluctantly accept my rental agreement, which they took to photocopy.
I have thought about it. I feel really disgusting for causing trouble for others like that. When I’m lazy, I usually do so when there are no customers. During peak hours, I don’t dare to be lazy.
The above is my ideological situation during my work, now I will talk about my colleagues. First, let me describe the situation of this Japanese fast food restaurant and the type of customers it faces. This Japanese fast food restaurant is a newly opened store, mainly serving programmers and residents of nearby high-end communities. Their eating habits are quite rebellious; they often leave a lot of rice and vegetables, with meat remaining in the bowls, not thinking about how to pack leftovers, which is a huge waste. When I face such situations, I usually wash dishes. To wash dishes faster, I can only personally throw all the leftover rice, meat, and vegetables into the trash. Since this store is newly opened, most of the staff are transferred from other chain stores, with few new hires. The store manager was promoted from a skilled worker, so the people she recruits are all considered “capable workers.” Therefore, everyone who comes here is a skilled worker. Let me talk about the people I have interacted with more these days. The first is the skilled worker who brought me, let’s call him coworker A. He used to work at a famous chip factory, and after being laid off, he planned to take the civil service exam, but he failed to pass for more than two years. Eventually, he came here, worked for a few years, and became one of the store manager’s assistants. I learned how to do things well with him, but because I have long been parasitic, I often make mistakes right after he points out something I should pay attention to. During the nightly deep cleaning of items, I often fail to clean those items thoroughly, causing him to stay late to help me clean up. He feels very helpless about my attitude and is very impatient with me. Sometimes I chat with him about news, such as traffic police forcibly confiscating delivery drivers’ electric bikes at delivery points, and he says that’s really barbaric. This person is also quite servile to the store manager, so when I confront the store manager, he and two other people (these two are quite abstract; one has an avatar popular among left-leaning circles, and the other is someone praised for quickly catching up with skilled workers after just a few days of learning, and they both despise us, the strikebreakers) team up to attack me. I’ve thought a lot about why he helps the store manager. He previously wanted to do mental labor and climb the social ladder to become part of the worker aristocracy. When I mentioned his background, he said it’s a pity I didn’t continue to pursue the worker aristocrat position. He also often says that I came here just to slack off and questions how I became an assistant. All these words reflect that his mindset is close to that of the exploiting class, and he is unwilling to stand with the working masses.
Unbelievable, isn’t it because he’s too servile?
Where is the owner of the building?
Next, I want to talk about a middle-aged woman who was persecuted by the store manager and other skilled workers. I’ll call her Worker B. How did I come to know her? It was because I was slower at some tasks, repeatedly considered a difficult-to-teach fool by the skilled workers, who even mimicked my self-doubt about my actions, asking others if I was doing the right thing, with a very disgusting attitude. I was very angry inside, so I used an excuse to stay away from them and started washing dishes, but as I mentioned above, I often left a lot of oil stains on the dishes, making them very unclean. The skilled workers nagged me all day about it, but Worker B was different. When facing my situation, she was very patient and didn’t get impatient to teach me. Worker B often got disgusted by the store manager because of issues related to calculating sales, and she also shouted every day that if she did the same thing next time, she wouldn’t come anymore. Before, there was a worker who was discriminated against with the skilled workers and who also annoyed her every day. She couldn’t stand this situation anymore and told me she had already resigned, but the store manager demanded she work for a month before leaving. After hearing this, I also felt very angry. I remembered the salary slip I saw earlier in January, which showed the store manager earning 7000, two skilled workers earning 4000, and other waiters only earning two or three thousand. In this city with low prices and even lower wages, 4000 is actually a dividing line. If workers want to earn 4000 a month here, they have to work more than 10 hours. The store, which just opened at the beginning of the year, had the store manager earning more than 7000 in just 20 days. Thinking about her commuting for 1 or 2 hours to work, working hard to earn just over 3000, I gained some emotional understanding of class differences and found a kind of emotion that would disappear once I stabilized in the workers’ aristocracy: a hatred for injustice and unfairness.
Finally, I want to talk about a very disgusting reactionary person: the store manager. She is a former worker thief. Before opening a branch and becoming a store manager, she had been working for over ten years. She is very arrogant. First, she relies on her long-term experience as a worker thief to maximize the exploitation of employees, often making employees work shifts both day and night, and when there are no customers, she lets employees leave early without recording their hours. When asked why she does this, she just smiles and says that’s how it should be—if there are no customers, it shouldn’t count as working hours. Such a worker thief, who got promoted through connections rather than relying on labor, is even more reactionary and rampant. She often yells and screams at minor issues she finds among workers, crazily pua (pick-up artist tactics), and arrogantly says the store needs everyone’s help, and everyone should think of the store and do their best. If they do poorly, they will lose their jobs, and no one can blame her. She even had the nerve to say to me, “Why are you often late? I commute just as long, and it’s no problem.” But she never talks about how she can leave the store at any time without anyone asking her questions. Moreover, she boasted that her children could go to university, saying her children are not like me, who only graduated from a vocational school and can only work as waiters. I rebutted her, saying that university students are not that useful, and she arrogantly said that her children are much more useful than me, and I don’t even know how to wash a bowl.
On February 2nd, I had a fierce conflict with her. Actually, there had been an earlier outbreak before this, because they added a rule in the employee handbook forbidding employees from bringing phones into the kitchen. I secretly brought mine at that time; the skilled workers turned a blind eye. But the worker thief started pointing fingers, saying that phones are not allowed in the kitchen and that we should follow the rules. I retorted to her, and she still had that look of “all for your own good, why are you so barbaric.” Later, she used an excuse to go to the bathroom and check a forum, but actually, she had diarrhea and took half an hour to come back. The store manager was furious, deducted my pay, and said she would strictly enforce discipline. That day, she even used a scanner only available at subway stations to scan me. I felt extremely humiliated—being forced through security checks during my commute was one thing, but now I was treated like a prisoner. The reason was simply because the store manager thought the employees weren’t working hard enough. I then demanded my right to communication freedom and argued against her company rules. She angrily demanded I sign a voluntary resignation letter, saying I could leave after washing my uniform. I protested immediately, pointing out that she was illegally firing me. She said that my violation of rules justified my dismissal. I made a mistake then—on the resignation letter, I wrote my name and indicated I was involuntarily dismissed. When I asked her for my wages, she arrogantly said they would pay me next month according to company regulations. I thought about how capitalists delay wages, and if workers don’t demand them promptly, it just makes the capitalists richer, giving them more money to pay interest and exploit more workers. Thinking about this, I felt I had to fight, but I was also unsure how to strengthen my persuasion, so I hid in a nearby shop to discuss strategies with others. They pointed out that demanding wages was the courage and motivation to fight against oppression and injustice, and that my fear and lack of persuasion at that moment were just excuses to avoid the struggle. After about an hour of persuasion, I gathered my courage to confront the store.
However, during the fight, I didn’t properly understand the enemy’s situation. When I went in during the afternoon shift and clashed with them, only a few tables of customers remained. I first pointed out that not paying wages was unreasonable. The store manager, a dog, was very arrogant and hostile, saying that she didn’t give the wages and told me to leave immediately or the police would arrest me for provocation. Two skilled workers and the worker thief surrounded me. The worker thief even tried to hit me, but I fought back. The store manager then said, “You dare hit someone,” and immediately called the police. Seeing the situation was serious, I had no choice but to call the police myself. Before the police arrived, I angrily pointed out that the average fast food meal costs 34 or 41 yuan, but the workers could only afford the cheapest meal after three hours of work, and each worker had to do more than ten bowls per hour. I highlighted the inequality, noticing the customers’ indifferent reactions, even children being held down by parents. I felt a bit defeated at this point, and the anger I had started to dissipate. It was like retreating from the fight—thinking only of reclaiming what was taken from me, without considering the broader situation of the workers or how many people were harmed by their tactics. I felt my situation was too bad; if I continued like this, it wouldn’t do. I tried to loudly point out the store’s malicious delay of wages. At this moment, the police arrived. The police dogs saw the police and cheered joyfully. I thought I couldn’t let them say anything to the police. If they did, I might be detained for provocation. But I still held onto some legalist ideas, wanting to use the police to pressure the store manager. When the police arrived, they pretended to ask questions about me and the store manager, then told me to get in the car and go to the police station, claiming they were mediating. I still had illusions and believed the police, so I entered the police station, thinking they were helping me. Later, everyone pointed out that the police tricked me into going there to avoid leaving evidence of my summons, since summons require a summons letter or recorded oral summons in documents.
I’ll update the post again when I get back tonight. For now, I’m heading to work, and next, it should be my situation of entering the doghouse.
Unbelievable, the kitchen staff are not even allowed to bring their phones. That’s too barbaric. Recently, our kitchen situation is quite similar to yours, just with an additional male manager, who is also a strikebreaker, and he came up with a ridiculous rule: “Late by one minute, deduct one yuan.” (When I was there) he also told us: (Some new staff made mistakes at that time) “You just arrived, we haven’t deducted your wages.” Damn it, isn’t it normal for new staff to make mistakes? Are we super geniuses or what?
I was deceived by two police officers under the guise of mediation and taken to the police station. When I arrived, I sensed something was wrong and wanted to leave, but on one hand, I harbored vain hopes of reclaiming my wages here, while on the other hand, I worried that if I left, the dog shop owner would lie and I would be arrested for provoking trouble. At the police station, the police dog and I waited in the mediation area. The police dog then said, “Why are there so many people demanding wages for mediation?” First, the police dog asked me and the dog shop owner to present our evidence, so I handed over the recording I made during the confrontation with the shop owner. Initially, the police officers claimed that the dog shop owner was framing me for provoking trouble, but after reviewing the recordings several times, they found no such evidence. The dog shop owner also started playing videos recorded in his shop in front of everyone, but at this moment I wanted to ask what was going on, yet I was afraid that the police dog would discover the forum situation, so I felt very panicked. I could only chat with others in the mediation area to ease my anxiety. My panic was mainly because I was fighting for my wages, driven by a petty bourgeois desire to reclaim my labor income, obsessing over gains and losses. When my personal interests were seriously threatened, I became terrified. It was this panic that led me into complete failure later. When the female shop owner was called in for questioning, she looked grim and kept ordering her staff and contacting the chain brand representatives. But after she came out, she looked arrogant, which made me feel even worse. I wanted to ask other police dogs what was going on, but they told me to wait. At this moment, I secretly turned on the recorder. Two hours later, I was called in. As I entered, I was questioned by a high-ranking police dog with a fierce, gloomy face, holding prayer beads. I responded that I wanted to settle my wages on the spot, but the police dog said that was a matter for the labor bureau, and they wouldn’t interfere. When I pointed out that they actually had law enforcement authority and cited relevant laws, he responded, “That’s not my jurisdiction, XXX handles that.” After arguing for a while, he finally revealed his true intentions, saying, “We don’t handle your wage demands, but your provocation case is our concern.” Then, under the pretext of confrontation, he forced the dog shop owner to humiliate me severely. The shop owner called me a liar (because my personal traits listed on my resume contradicted her expectations), called me a pest (for causing trouble at work), and exaggerated my resistance during the wage dispute, claiming I assaulted someone when I tried to resist the factory thief. I cursed and said, “Fuck,” and she falsely accused me of insults and attacks. I was furious at that moment but too panicked to say anything, completely passive. After humiliating me, she was about to leave. I couldn’t contain my anger and demanded an apology from her, recalling that she had previously said her children were better than me, and insisted she apologize. She went completely mad, saying, “What’s wrong with wanting her children to get into a better university? How dare you criticize me?” Then she called a senior police dog over, saying they would hold me responsible and charge me with provoking trouble. The police dog said, “Alright, first lock him up for 15 days, then fine him 200 yuan, and finally make him apologize properly.” I was utterly panicked. The police dog even said I was too arrogant, daring to speak loudly in the police kennel, and if I did again, I would be sent directly to jail. Clearly, they were exploiting my panic and fear to make me submit. He hinted that I could apologize to the dog shop owner and that there was still room to leave. I felt extremely humiliated—being a worker, I hadn’t even managed to get my wages, and now I was being forced to apologize to the police dog and the dog shop owner inside the kennel. I truly wanted to be locked up rather than beg these animals for mercy, but out of petty bourgeois fear of death, I ultimately succumbed. When I was forced to say that everything was my fault, I trembled with rage. The shop owner looked satisfied. At this moment, the police dog said, “I’ve been a senior officer for so long, you think I can’t take you down?” The shop owner then took the opportunity to agree, saying, “Yes, my family also has a ‘Glorious Home’ badge” (this was something retired soldiers fought for with the Chinese military after 2018, used to deceive veterans). She also said, “Are soldiers in your army as hard to manage as him?” I hated these animals even more. Thinking about how this officer cruelly exploited the laboring people to form new soldiers, and that these people were all colluding to oppress us, I only wanted to grab a knife and cut their heads off. The shop owner left satisfied, while the senior police dog kept me behind to humiliate me further, claiming to uphold fairness and absolve himself of responsibility, saying I couldn’t get along in the old society and should be a good servant, and demanded I wash my work uniform and return it to them. Finally, he told me to wait there. I waited for half an hour before they released me. After being released, I thought about how to tell everyone on the forum about this incident. On the way back, I immediately tried to contact forum members. Everyone was very indignant about my experience and suggested I post it on the forum so more people could know. That’s how this wage dispute story was born. I still feel humiliated about this incident, but the humiliation stems from my lack of more resolute struggle. I didn’t change my lax attitude at work, which caused a lot of trouble for my colleagues, so I can’t really claim to have fought for my coworkers. Also, during the wage dispute, I was overly concerned with my own things, afraid to demand wages on the spot, using the excuse of not knowing how to fight as a reason to retreat. After encouragement from others, I failed to properly investigate the situation, and when most of the crowd had already gone back to work, I still engaged in the struggle. The most dangerous part was that I had previously pressured the police to help me demand wages, trusting police mediation promises, which put me in danger. The reason for all this was my long-term obsession with various spiritual opiates, which bizarrely accepted selfishness, private ownership, oppression, and exploitation as reasonable. Due to my prolonged position as a member of the worker aristocracy’s economic class, I absorbed these spiritual opiates completely. I even watched pornographic comics for a long time, which led to serious prejudices against women and a misogynistic attitude. This also reflects a long-standing truth taught by the association: oppressors cannot be liberated themselves. To achieve victory over the bourgeoisie, the key is to reform one’s own ideological tendencies towards the bourgeoisie. As a petty bourgeois, I must change myself to succeed.