I wrote the following poem in response to another thread where the term "menial" was used in describing work.

Menial, By Brian37

The false cry
Of those who don't
The false cry
Of those who won't

I've flipped
A theater
In a multiplex
During the Lion King

I've tried to explain
The weather delay
Ice on the road
To angry customers

All on a Friday January night
Understaffed
Delivering pizzas
Putting up with verbal abuse

How hard is it
To dump trash
In the back
Of a dump truck?

Easy, sure
Unless it is icy
Or extremely hot
Try doing that
12 hours a day

Try lifting 5 lb plates
6 per tray
Hundreds of times a day
Back hurting at the end of the day

Not to mention communication
With the cooks
With the busers
With the customers

Try all that
On Easter Sunday
And call it "menial"
I'll laugh in your face

There is nothing
Unskilled
Or menial
About an honest job

Ignorant are those
Who make such claims
Because society sells them
Such absurdities.

It be not a matter
Of "settling for less"
It is the reality
We all do our best

Those in at the bottom
Work just as hard
Are just as needed
As those a the the top

"Menial" the word
Spewed by the snobs
There is nothing "Menial"
About an honest job.
(end)

I wrote this in response to the sick and selfish attitude I got from another poster on another website. I have not been a trash collector or a waiter. But unlike some, I value the skill of any job. People falsely mistake the easy of a task when things are slow, no job is easy when it is busy.

"Ease" of a task is a subjective view. What is easy for one person may not be easy for another. But no matter the job, it is never easy when it is busy.  To claim such is absurd and outright snobish and selfish.

Now to quell the other response that might follow, "You're saying that it is ok for everyone to be lazy and accept low paying jobs".

NO, what I am saying is that this is a THREE CLASS SYSTEM and it takes all of us. As such we need to treat each other as individuals and not clones of each other. EVERY CLASS IS NEEDED, but I am damned tired of the poor being devalued. No poor person I know is lazy, at least not the ones I would want to work with.

Beyond, if you insist on responding please refrain from your bullshit argument that I hate wealth or want to end the open market. It has always been for me the pay gap and cost of living and abuse of power. All classes are needed and inequity has to exist to motivate people. All poor, no one does anything, all rich no one would do anything. So the issue is to treat everyone as individuals and value them as individuals. What you want and value is not the same as the next person.