Employers - are there any good ones?

   I have never worked for any company that I loved. Having said this, we can clear the road for some realities. First a little back ground. I have been working since about twelve. My first job was a tiny paper route. I walked around town and delivered papers to homes.
   Next, I received training for electronic assembly. Meaning I could solder tiny parts into tiny boards. Eight hours a day. Our lungs were bathed each day in fumes from a chemical bath that those parts were dipped in. The ventilation in the building wasn't used. The ventilator was only turned on when we became to ill to work, mostly I worked with Vietnamese. The company was saving money. We built shock collars for dogs. A news story broke about these vary collars being used on mental patients. The ventilator worked great while the inspectors were there.
   My story is really about the injustice we all face here in the United States being employed. As time has gone by employers have created a light we are held up to for a thorough inspection. Drug tests, back ground check's and criminal history checks. The sanitizing step. A credit check.I am not sure when people in America became sheep. Allowing others to bully us. Allowing others to decide if we were fit for employment by digging in our pasts. I am sure of one thing. Once you have passed all the investigations. You can be employed. Other requirements: don't be to fat or smoke. What a great waist time. This is more about keeping people down than assisting them to rise about poverty. My recent experience within the last ten years is this "so called benefit" Paid time off. An elusive benefit that is used like a whip - if you please your boss you can use this paid time off. But if not, they will keep you from using it as long as they can. Better keep your eye on your pay check this "PTO" can disappear with out a trace and no explanation. And you my friend are screwed. So like the child, trying to be good so mother will give us a bit of attention. We sign on to work for said company. Things may not go our way. Our first check may be held. While waiting, we are told our second check has been lost in the mail. We frantically struggle to make phone calls to those we owe money. Our basic lives are now on hold.
   We can not buy groceries. We can not buy gas. We can not pay our home utilities.    All states have labor board's. What an absolute joke they are. They will side with said company until you get a lawyer. Then, the labor board sends one letter. Informing the employer you want to be paid. In some cases you file a claim, six months roll by and you get an answer.In many situations employers simply do not pay. The fines are laughable to the employer. While waiting for the answer most people just walk away.
   In America we have created a hostile work force. Shipped our jobs over seas and cut our benefits. So government and employers can win. For the one left without money. The entire process can set us spinning. The cost of depression alone sky rockets. Millions of dollars spent hoping to fix our feelings from bad relationships with lovers, family and employers.
   I am not giving you statistics. You know someone who has experienced this entire process. I had the daughter of one of my employers tell me one day. "You should be great full for your job my mother is the highest paid employer in Tucson." At the time I was getting eight dollars fifty cents an hour. To expose my self to about 250 micro-organisms. I was a private care giver. Bathing, shaving and helping the older person in their home. The child was twelve when she made these comments to me. She will some day take over for her mother. And like many of my employers, they never gave me my last pay check.
   I read an article one time about the billions that employers get out of not paying in America. It sure would be nice if instead of the populace getting screwed financially at every turn. We all just stopped working for one week. I guess then employers might see who was really running the business.
   Sadly, many of us will show up. We hope to get those elusive benefits and that all mighty pay check.

Universal Thinking

The question continues to run around inside of me. Now and again I share the idea with others. Some laugh, some just look at me in amusement. Others are curious.

Some time ago when I was a child. One evening late in summer a friend and I were looking at the sky. We were gazing and far off in the distance I saw the first glimpse. Lights seemed to bounce up and down from the ground to the sky. Not normal lights. No this was something we both became afraid of. Our fear turned to giggles then we told ghost stories for a while.

The next day I ask my friend about the lights. The response bothered me. "what lights". I felt my friend had surely lied to me. And now as an adult looking back. I realize my friend really had no memory of that moment.

Our fears create movies and books that spell doom and dread for the human race. Enslaved or killed we are always conquered. Sometimes we are victorious other times we are doomed. Humans have always had a love affair with space.

Even with this love affair we seem to be so far behind in regards to space travel. We spend millions and sometimes billions for bombs. Yet we know very little about space and the other planets.

With one company able to build ships that will take people up high enough to experience weightlessness. For a few thousand dollars. We have made our travels into space a Disney land.NASA has accepted millions to take some into space to the space station. While the rest of us sit here waiting for a chance to travel into the Universe. Are we creating a "rich only" attitude for space travel?

Some seem to fear the truth and others want to keep us locked into this planet. . We even seem bent on our destruction. Rather than our expansion into the Universe. My idea is not new. I am sure I am not the first to want to try it.
I believe in creating a Universal Space Program. An all volunteer program. Paid for by every nation in the world. All who enter space would sign wavers due to the reality the ships may break up or crash. The high risk of death would probably keep many from volunteering. Or perhaps we may be surprised.

We would need translators and many of us would need to learn each others languages. I believe the project could be done. Instead of a massive land grab. Perhaps Saudi Arabia could build this project. They have massive open land mass without rain to prevent ships from travel. Or Africa could host the project. Temperatures might be a problem or not.

I am not a scientist. My desire for space travel is purely selfish. I do belive there is life beyond humans and animals. I believe we were meant to expand into the universe not destroy this planet. Perhaps now is the time to organize and develop massive space travel program.