Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for September 02, 2024

An actual Labor Day tribute! I like it!

A union would serf him right.

Take away that coffee pot, and they all go on strike.

At first glance I thought it was a new form of foosball.

The company should also include a galley drummer to make it complete.

Either those are oars or this is foosball.

trump and musk will fire anybody that talks of unions

They could also either work together so each side is paddling the opposite direction or put the stronger people on one side and the weaker ones on the other. Either way, the office will be going around in circles!

That office needs to be remodeled-stat! At least add more windows.

At least they’ll know they can’t be fired. Slaves have to be sold.

Is there a roman word for that guy? The modern American word is “middle manager”.

Was a member of the International brotherhood of Electrical workers and a member of the teamsters of the Union

Does the CEO like to go water skiing?

You have to do some manual work, oar you’re fired.

CEO doesn’t have his oars in the water

Roman galleys were not oared by slaves. That was invented in Hollywood… Actually Lew Wallace, who invented it in the book Hollywood kept remaking – but you probably haven’t read Lew Wallace so you know it from the movies, ’cause once it went in one EVERYONE later copied the lie. Actually no one used slaves for rowing in the ancient world. While it would have been cost effective it would have made them dangerous to have on board in battle. You hired poor people to man the oars, they worked cheap and if the enemies got on board they were on your side in the fight (you could trust them with weapons).

Galley slaves came much later, after my time period in the study of history. I heard someone say it was the Christian Venetians who started using slaves in galleys, but – it being out of my historical period – I don’t know if it’s true.

Moral: Don’t trust anything you learned from watching movies.

It smells like ‘team spirit’.

Got a check in the mail from the company. Turns out many of us were hourly and didn’t know it. Someone complained to the state employment dept and the check was for overtime over the year. Then the company promoted everyone to salaried with no raise, what a shock, LOL!!

My first impression was that the employees had been turned into Foosball players.

Make them all “Assistant Managers” and work them 60 hours without overtime.

Also in an effort to avoid overtime, the CEO has the drummer in the front of the office beat out Ramming Speed shortly after their ten minute lunch which is taken at a their station.

Here’s a Roman Galley joke…

First mate on a tri-marine addresses the crew…

“Listen up Fellas, I got good news and bad news. First the good news, everyone gets a good hot Midday meal today, with a dessert. Now the bad news, the Skipper wants to try his hand at waterskiing.”

Get the organizing done quickly!

I hope none of them has a Stroke!

Australia just passed a law that allows workers to ignore their bosses when off duty. It’s call the “Right to Disconnect.” It protects employees who “refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable.” Of course, there are caveats, but it does seem to be a step that should be taken in the US as well.

A depiction of how some bosses would like staff work to be. But, so many are working from home or other locations, it’s very difficult to get them all pulling in the same direction.

The oars are attached to the electrical grid to save costs. The exercise received is a bonus, the only one the employees will get.

Consider that recently, Denise Prudhomme, 60, was found dead on Aug. 20 in her Arizona office after four days in her cubical.

so having a profit incentive is only virtuous for those volunteering to exchange their labor for capital…even in the world of self-employment you’re totally reliant on others to make things happen…

Comment from the slave master on a Roman Galley, "I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is there will be an extra portion of gruel tonight. The bad news is, first the king wants to go water skiing.

I could make a suggestion or two about what they could do with those oars, but I might get banned!

Yeah, but the union nowadays is for itself and the company, not for the people. Which why they’re slowly dying out. Have you notice, the unions have a better retirement plan than the people who they’re supposed to be representing?

When I was in my teens and twenties, I was very anti-union. But then I started working in industries that are rife with abuse. Flight Instruction, for one. Most of the major flight schools schedule their instructors for 10 to 12 hour duty-days, 5 or 6 days a week, on the premise that the instructors want to build their hours as quickly as possible so they can move on to the airlines — never mind that the student who is paying upwards of $100,000 in tuition is getting crap instruction. I was fortunate enough to get a position instructing for a European-based airline training in the United States. As an employee of a European company, I was protected by some very strict labor laws.My wife used to work for The Home Depot. That is a company that desperately needs an employee union.

I’m not pro-Unions in general but there are times and situations when it’s good to have that right and exercise it.

Unions: United we bargain, divided we beg. So said the sticker on my hard hat. Retired Teamster here.

I worked in a company where the CEO was religiously anti-union. I was in a meeting where a new salary structure was being presented. The CEO stated, “I like it. Now my employees can F-word me for less money.”

Now you know why I hid in a far corner of the organization as far away from him as possible.

I did not seek a management position in this company because managers were required to attend the political fund raising events at his house. Your promotion potential was based on attending and your bonus depended on the amount you contributed.

This CEO was rewarded by the previous administration with the position of Postmaster General and holds the position to this day.

Ramming speed!

“Sir, can I use my oar to hit the chatterboxes outside my cubicle if I stay in cadence?”

I worked for an Italian. Then I joined the military to be free.

“I don’t care. OSHA says they are trip hazards and have to go.”

Worth noting that ancient Romans also had about half of a years’ worth of holidays, thanks to the god(dess) of [insert random thing here] having a special day that required celebration.

And now I can see how a worker could die in their cubicle and not be noticed for four days. (That’s when the vultures start circling.)

In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty states in the U.S. officially celebrated Labor Day. Labour Day has been celebrated as a statutory public holiday in Canada on the first Monday in September since 1894.

No wonder the idea of Vendetta comes from the same place!

The only reason my company hasn’t done it is they moved us to an open floor plan for “better communication” so there isn’t any place for the ores

Treadmill to generate power. That way they can still use the computer.

Puts a whole new meaning to the oft heard comment “Ah, this job’s going nowhere!”

Bad idea. Those oars can be easily slid out and used to clobber the bosses.

Galley oarsmen were well-paid specialists. Ben Hur was fiction. Those oars look well positioned to give the boss a whack as he goes by.

No room for the coffee wagon

I once worked at a place that renamed “No Overtime Pay” to “Contributory Time” because management decided that we loved our jobs so much that we would be Happy to contribute a few extra hours each week.

Out of the goodness of our Hearts, of course.