I do like the employee solidarity maneuver of refusing to fill in for understaffing or train new hires for a significant interim after a recent dismissal.
If a company doesn’t treat workers like human beings, then maybe the company shouldn’t be regarded as a society participant.
Kafka was a very dark soul who saw all the misery that the everyman was suffering through the bureaucracy that they had to deal with in Prague in the early 20th century and wrote stories which were based on how he felt about it, although very fictionalized. Metamorphosis, which this is about, is about a man who turns into a beetle and, after being abandoned by everyone including his family, becomes more and more insect-like in his mind until he finally dies.
In Metamorphosis, unlike the comic, he begs his boss to let him go back to work, but to no avail because he can’t communicate anymore.
"Now," said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one who had kept his composure. "I'll get dressed right away, pack up the collection of samples, and set off. You'll allow me to set out on my way, will you not? You see, Mr. Manager, I am not pig-headed, and I am happy to work. Travelling is exhausting, but I couldn't live without it. Where are you going, Mr. Manager? To the office? Really? Will you report everything truthfully? A person can be incapable of work momentarily, but that's precisely the best time to remember the earlier achievements and to consider that later, after the obstacles have been shoved aside, the person will work all the more eagerly and intensely. I am really so indebted to Mr. Chief--you know that perfectly well. On the other hand, I am concerned about my parents and my sister. I'm in a fix, but I'll work myself out of it again. Don't make things more difficult for me than they already are. Speak up on my behalf in the office! People don't like travelling salesmen. I know that. People think they earn pots of money and thus lead a fine life. People don't even have any special reason to think through this judgment more clearly. But you, Mr. Manager, you have a better perspective on what's involved than other people, even, I tell you in total confidence, a better perspective than Mr. Chairman himself, who in his capacity as the employer may let his judgment make casual mistakes at the expense of an employee. You also know well enough that the travelling salesman who is outside the office almost the entire year can become so easily a victim of gossip, coincidences, and groundless complaints, against which it's impossible for him to defend himself, since for the most part he doesn't hear about them at all and only then when he's exhausted after finishing a trip and at home gets to feel in his own body the nasty consequences, which can't be thoroughly explored back to their origins. Mr. Manager, don't leave without speaking a word telling me that you'll at least concede that I'm a little in the right!"
Kafka understood what the suffering of the working class meant. And the oppression of the everyman. I’ve read The Trial several times and it never ceases to both terrify me and really hit me emotionally.
