dumb shit department

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

They’ve gotta eat too.

You are putting money in their pocket. That is not a bad thing.

Listen, let me tell you, okay?

Shortly before I got laid off, I went for a pedicure at my favorite place for the first time in over two years. I’d decided to switch places because it’s a 30-mile-round-trip drive and I wanted something closer to home, but I’d been deeply disappointed by local options, so back to my original spa I went.

Over two years.

I WALKED IN THE DOOR AND THE OWNER GREETED ME BY NAME.

This is a busy place. She sees several hundred people a week.

I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure I know why she remembers me, and do you know what I think it is?

1) I’m polite

2) I tip well

3) on the occasions when I’ve seen someone in there decide to get racist over most of the staff being Vietnamese, I give them hell because I know the staff can’t and also I’m white so, sadly, they’re more likely to actually be embarrassed if I do it.

Am I exploiting my pedicure tech? I guess that depends on your definition of exploitation. I have terrible feet (thanks, family) and I appreciate the work of someone trained to deal with the calluses from my weird gait and the toenail that likes to grow into my foot. I make sure they know I appreciate it, both verbally and financially. Is that exploitation?

some people really don’t realize how privileged they are that they get fanfics for free. imagine having access to something for free because someone is kind enough to share it with you… and then being rude, entitled and an ungrateful pos to that person who was kind enough to share their creation with you for free

“almost 1 year is a lil too much for me” fuck off. fanfic writers don’t owe you anything. one of my favorite fics was updated after 13 years, and what I did is that I thanked the author for choosing to continue the work, I didn’t act like a spoiled toddler by asking why they didn’t update sooner. and even if a writer chooses to abandon their fic permanently with no explanation, that is their choice, their hobby, their decision. they don’t owe your entitled ass anything.

too many people completely separate disability from themselves in their mind. it's something that happens to other people. other sad people i don't want to think about. are they really even people, it's too much to bear thinking about that happening to a person... those background characters over there. it would never be me, i can't cope with thinking about that possibility.

this mass denialism of the fragility of the human body (YOUR human body) has created a whole category separate from the disabled - the "elderly." since anyone can join it if they live long enough.. no they can't be disabled. that's scary, and worse it's political. so they are just "old." so what they lost their hearing, their mobility, their heart function? that's just how it goes for old people. as if that's not a person as real as you. as if you wouldn't be devastated if that happened to you today (and it can btw). as if you won't be when it's your turn to be old, and disabled.

My grandparents lived to 98 and 103. Read that again— 98 and 103. My grandmother died 5 months ago and was born in 1923.

She was extremely wealthy. My grandfather left her millions. She paid about 13,000 a month for her care.

And her nurses abused her. She could do nothing. She could not speak for herself, feed herself, clothe herself, and the humiliation they made her endure was disgusting. When she tried to express discomfort, they gave her drugs to “keep her calm” (keep their shift easy). We fought like HELL to hold that fucking place accountable. The only reason we were aware is because we hired a private nurse on her behalf, too.

The elderly are a massive, extremely vulnerable, and disabled group. You cannot leave them out of your advocacy, you cannot leave them out of the conversation. “They’re loud, they smell, they’re opinionated, they’re rude, they make me uncomfortable”. I don’t care. I don’t care! They need your advocacy too! I want you to think, if my grandmother— who was in the best retirement home she could afford, with a personally hired third-party nurse to step in where the other carers failed, had such abhorrent care… what about everyone else? What about all the elderly who don’t have a support system?

We’re not against endos because they don’t have a medical diagnosis, we’re against endos because they’re claiming to be systems outside of the criteria of being a system. That, and they’re spreading misinformation about how systems form.

Using a term to try and compare us to transmeds, who are people who gatekeep being trans because “well you’re not medically transitioning” is really fucking stupid. Not to mention transphobic because you’re comparing being trans to having a mental illness.

Gender is a social construct. Mental illness, isn’t.

Removes emphasis on the severity of these disorders: This already happens! "Endos" will say that people with these disorders are being bigots when chances are bigotry was the reason they ended up with DID/OSDD-1 anyways. Survivors are no longer allowed to talk about their experiences without someone getting the ick from someone even just mentioning that they were abused. It's an unnecessary source of conflict that worsens stigma against survivors and potentially even discourages someone possibly seeking professional help that would increase their quality of life.

Conflates queerness with mental illness: This one may not be considered, but as a transgender gay man I feel like it needs to be said. Being queer is not a mental illness. You are conflating being queer with a lifesaving dissociative disorder. Fascists will bank on this, use this as evidence to say that "transgenderism" is caused by trauma (while simultaneously doing nothing to stop said trauma from happening, I can guarantee this). The fact that I am transgender has absolutely nothing to do with my trauma. I always like to say that if I was born with a d*ck my mom would've known that I'm gay. If anything, trauma put me back in the closet, especially as I started going through puberty. I'm so sick of hearing the queer = mentally ill narrative, and you should be, too.

So ultimately, at the end of the day, being queer and having a complex dissociative disorder are not the same. Someone can be queer and have a complex dissociative disorder, but at the end of the day, one is not caused by the other. And by queerifying DID and OSDD specifically, we dismiss the severity of living with DID/OSDD and further demonize both survivors of childhood trauma and transgender people.