I worked at a small business and actually had an interaction like this with the owner. There was a power outage that basically made doing business impossible. It wasn’t going to be a short term thing either. The power could be out all day.
I asked the owner if I could go home for the time being. If the power came back on, then he could give me a call, and I’d be right back in. He scoffed at the idea! I was a salaried employee! I had already been paid for a FULL day of work! So what? The power’s out and I can’t do my work without power. He was adamant that, since he paid me, I had to do whatever he said for that entire day. If he wanted me to scrub the floor, then I’d scrub the floors! He paid me! I need to listen to him! I ended up sitting at my desk, in the dark, doing nothing, for 6 hours. The owner did the same thing in his office. It was wild.
It’s then that I realized we both saw employment from very different perspectives. I saw it as a trade, but he saw it as indentured servitude. I belonged to him until he said otherwise because he gave me money.
That doesn’t surprise me. Some people really do have an empathy problem. I recall someone once claim that if you spend time at work not working (like a break) you’re committing theft.
In your example I’d wager that the dude didn’t fully understand what you actually did there.
I worked at a small business and actually had an interaction like this with the owner. There was a power outage that basically made doing business impossible. It wasn’t going to be a short term thing either. The power could be out all day.
I asked the owner if I could go home for the time being. If the power came back on, then he could give me a call, and I’d be right back in. He scoffed at the idea! I was a salaried employee! I had already been paid for a FULL day of work! So what? The power’s out and I can’t do my work without power. He was adamant that, since he paid me, I had to do whatever he said for that entire day. If he wanted me to scrub the floor, then I’d scrub the floors! He paid me! I need to listen to him! I ended up sitting at my desk, in the dark, doing nothing, for 6 hours. The owner did the same thing in his office. It was wild.
It’s then that I realized we both saw employment from very different perspectives. I saw it as a trade, but he saw it as indentured servitude. I belonged to him until he said otherwise because he gave me money.
That doesn’t surprise me. Some people really do have an empathy problem. I recall someone once claim that if you spend time at work not working (like a break) you’re committing theft.
In your example I’d wager that the dude didn’t fully understand what you actually did there.
The conservative mindset is raw hierarchy. There is nothing else in their moral universe.