Couldn't Be More Empty

Last Thursday I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being completely lost, totally alone and without direction. It was uncomfortable.
I visited Dr. Feelgood to have this hideous disease diagnosed. Then I bopped over to the Russel Animal Hospital to pick up a 2012 SPCA calender. Every year I pick up a calender that reflects some aspect of me quite specifically. This is the first one of this sort and I feel good about it.
Next to the gas station to inflate my woefully under inflated front left tire. Then to the coffee shop to pick up some K-cups (only strong coffee for me, baby). Still had half an hour to kill before work.
Unfortunately the disrespectful way I have been treated by my employers over the past few weeks has killed any possibility of ever going in early. Only a chump sacrifices his personal time for people who don't care if he lives or dies.
So off to McDonald's for two sausage burritos. $2.18.
I was sitting in the truck, munching, and suddenly I was overcome with this ache, this loneliness, this sense of nothingness. Chowing delightful health food in a McDonald's parking lot in the middle of winter. So I started to try to figure out what the hell was going on.
Since December 19 I have had four days off. Two of those days were Christmas and New Years. I am currently in the fifth day of a stretch of ten days in a row at work with no days off. I got screwed out of overtime pay on the days after Christmas and New Years. I have been sick since Christmas Eve.
I am stating facts here. Facts that apply to millions of people in this country. People whose holidays get ruined by employers, people who are overworked, underpaid and unappreciated (contrary to executive wisdom,a pat on the head does nothing to improve morale), people who are being used as tools rather than being seen as humans, people who are sick and have to go to work and cannot get any rest.
People who have to endure this lack of dignity because they need the job. People who know their employers are sitting back smirking about employee injustices, knowing full well that there are 250 unemployed people for every employee, people just dying to get their hands on a paycheck once again.
That is why I feel so empty. So alone. I am at the mercy of this system and very uncomfortable knowing that my job hangs by a thread. One E-mail and my hours get cut back. One pseudo-executive decision, and my job is gone. And the people with the power to make these decisions do not have a shred of decency or morality.
I am obsessed with finding a way to make some kind of money independently. Could be I'm dreaming and that I will die at Store 072. That would be the worst life I could imagine. Dancing on the end of a string pulled by liars, cheaters and crooks. Living on my knees.
This is where America is at. A nation of people who are completely unfulfilled, people who never will be fulfilled. People who will never feel dignified going to work and never get ahead financially. People to whom their job means nothing, completely disassociated from what they are forced to do every goddamn day.
Empty, lost souls. Desperate for anything that might make them feel human. It is extremely hard to maintain your perspective when for the majority of every day the message you get is that you are expendable, not human, a resource, being manipulated and exploited. You can read all the Positive Thinking books you want, but that kind of constant negativity pollutes your soul.
2012 is starting out with a hollowness in my gut. Not what I expected, but the unexpected can sometimes be good. I feel more motivated than ever to bring DIGNITY into my life.
Let you know how that goes.