Capitalism, Control, and Economic Tyranny.
I started writing this article over 15 months ago, then I left it halfway and moved on. Found it last month and pinned it as one of the articles I have to go back and finish, and I guess I'm doing that today, finally.
I remember that I had to write this article after I came across a post on Facebook, the poster had originally requested recommendations, he was looking for a lawyer to hire. Then he made a subsequent post with a screenshot of a lawyer’s profile, on it was written something unprofessional, but not evil or immoral. I can’t remember the words now.
The poster was like “How can you have something like that on your profile and expect people to hire you", then he talked about how he wasn’t going to hire her even if she was good at her job, stuff like that.
I remember that I commented saying something like this :
"While it’s true that many organizations check people online before hiring, I however think that is wrong for organizations to police what people share online or what they do with their personal social media handles. People cannot be on work mode 247. we are humans and we need fun and freedom just as we need work.
It’s social media, not a CV.
What organizations should care about is this, is this person capable of this role? Do they have what we need? Are they good at their job? If they are good at what you need them for, then that’s it.
We don’t have to bring "officialness" into our everyday lives, especially if it’s not what we want just because we want a job or we have a job.
We should moderate people at work. Not outside of work. People go to clubs, dance, have sex, play games and do many things outside of work, that’s their personal life and employers should not be monitoring what people do outside of work time and workspace.I understand that a lot of companies do that, but I still think it is wrong".
Oh, the people came for me really bad. I stood my ground though and eventually stopped checking out and replying to the comments.
After all that, I had to think of how much capitalism messes with us really badly. Why are human beings denied of their humanness and right to just be humans because they want jobs and want to work for survival?
Yes, it's okay to check if the person you want to employ is homophobic, misogynistic, racist, tribalistic and all that. These people will be relating to other workers within the work place and nobody wants an employee who will bring hate and disrespect for other workers.
But guess what?
These poeple do not care about misogyny, because they themselves are misogynistic, they don't care about history of sexual abuse in the people they intend to employ, they don't check if they are religious bigots, as they also are that.
This Economic tyranny is crazy because because why are these poeple obsessed with controlling what their employees do after work?
Why is your female employee calling herself baddie on social media a problem for you?
Why do you want your employees to keep being professional on social media? Why?
Why are you saying that your employees are an extension of your business and they have to represent and be a face of your business everywhere they are ?
If you believe that your employees have to live their lives off work for your brand, why are you not paying them brand ambassador fees? Why are you not paying them influencer fees?
Why do you want employees to live their lives off work for you? What kind of a capitalist control freak are you?
People live for themselves and for whatever they decide to live for. Employers should have no right to dictate what their employees can do on social media or off work hours.
Workers are human beings with their own goals, interests, lives, and needs. Their lives shouldn't revolve around their work and bosses just because they need money.
As humans we have autonomy. If your employee signed up to work with you for 8hrs a day, 5 days a week, or for whatever time frame with you, that should be the only time of their day that they owe to you.
I think that as long as employees are doing their work diligently and not hurting or harming anybody, then whatever they do for fun outside of work should not be up for debate by bosses.
We are human beings. Not toys and robots. We deserve fun. It is tyranny to refuse to hire people or fire them because they went to a club or posted a video of them drinking, dancing and smoking in a club.
Or because they are homosexual, like the case of Nigerian and Ghanian bar associations that have refused to accept two female lawyers. One for being gay and the other for smoking and being nude on social media.
It is tyranny to fire workers because they wore revealing skimpy clothes and posted a video of them smoking or being wild.
Whatever people do for fun should not be up to bosses to decide. They are workers, not an extention of your business and if you want them to be influencers and brand ambassadors, pay them for the extra work.
We need laws that protect workers in Africa, in Nigeria. We need laws that protect workers from tyranny at their work places, from exploitation and from control.
People should not give up their fun lives because they want to keep a job and earn a living.
