I have been at this job for a little over 7 months now. This job working as a small business coach. I had submitted my two weeks only to rescind. This job has contributed to my stability as an individual, and so I am grateful to have it. I experience more emotional stability now compared to when I worked as a server and wanted more. If I had been working as a server and felt satisfied with my contributions and ability to secure my survival security as an individual, I likely would not have felt as unfulfilled internally.

And so I took a step up the ladder and I got a more strategic role as a small business coach. This was a significant milestone for me. I manifested for more than a year to find my way out of that position as a server. The implication is that I went into the job reserved yet grateful. It seemed somewhat like a scam, what the people running the operation were doing, and I knew from the start it didn’t agree with my ethics and I needed to treat it as a means to an end. The benefits are subpar and I am dramatically underpaid for my contributions, and yet it is what I found accessible. I have come to make the most of it, as I know this event is what takes me to the next and I have certainly found positive lessons to extract.

Yet that does not stop my observation on the tiers of labor and how those clawing their way out of the bottom find encounters with exploitation before they finally have selection power in determination of their life. It is my belief that it takes a strong person to rise out of the bottom through spirals of exploitation and maintain a sense of authentic identity.

I woke this morning and considered the contradiction between my gratitude for and the exploitation of the role. I generally wake every morning and express gratitude for income, employment, and my apartment. I then moderate my gratitude with reflections on reality, in terms of not letting gratitude reduce my drive to go where I am going and reject complacency. This job submits me to tenets of exploitation and therefore decreased confidence and self-worth as I have limited ability to defend myself.

For example, I use my personal laptop. I have learned this company has before engaged with remote monitoring of employee laptops. This is an infringement on my privacy and decreases my belief that I have a right to privacy. Thus, I am exploited, and this company has power over me.

Another example: the company records all calls. The leadership of the company have before been known to audit these calls. They also lack ethics in terms of the pursuit of profit. For example, I spoke on several calls with clients about a new idea regarding planning operations that was not included in the curriculum of the course for which they signed up. Two months later, this idea I had been speaking to found itself posted as part of their own curriculum: a future organizational chart. They did not have to ask to use it and they did not have to give me credit for it because they have the right to record calls. The only power I have is to withhold my speech on calls if I have a good idea, or make the decision to leave the position. I do not have another position lined up, and the last time I submitted my two weeks I realized I had not yet fulfilled my need to pay off my student loan before leaving the role and subsequently asked to stay. The theft of my intellectual property for selfish gain decreases my worth as it demonstrates there is not an environment of mutual respect.

I receive 65 thousand annually to perform this work. This is rather low pay for the value I offer and the amount of clients I manage. The last position I held was a server. What has become apparent to me is that there are tiers of labor and there are tiers of companies. I took the first role I felt blessed enough to have cross my path, and this is because I am clawing my way out of the bottom. I recognize now I am in a tiers of labor scenario where my desperation facilitated settling for a low-tier, scam company simply to have the chance at opportunity. These are the options available to those wishing to rise. What would happen to me on this rise if my ethics were not as strong as mine, and I did not have such a strong sense of identity? I would be much more likely to become a reflection of the ethics that shaped me: exploitation and corruption. To the extent that facets of these determinants have not already infiltrated my essence. Exposure in itself is a risk. And I must maintain a levelled emotional state to keep tabs on how the corrupted ethics of that environment intend to sway or manufacture me. This place is corruption because it is corruption that manufactures the individual’s belief around success from the moment they intend to scale their career in any manner of financial security.

I awoke this morning and realized, as I have in many similar ways before, though with its own unique twist, that I have outgrown this role. I’ve gained skills in 1:1 coaching and discovered I am quite adept in this capacity. I understand persuasion to be a significant factor of the sales practice, and I gain that skill, as well. It is the ethics of what is being persuaded and to whom that does not sit well with me, and why I believe I am ready to take the skills I have gained in this role and apply them in a way that is more dignified and respectful of my intellect and what I actually exist to manifest in this life: global equality. In my current role, I exist in the opposite of this. I teach others how to express dominance over others so they may be passive in their existence. I demean labor. Though I recognize as it relates to my overall purpose, it is important for me to have this exposure so when I speak in the future, it will not be from a place of hypothetical conjecture – it will be from experience. I see how these companies operate. And I will not forget.

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