Subordination

Parts of our society rely on a hierarchy of inequality to maintain exploitation. Subordination as a concept is part of the problem.

Subordination is the state of being inferior to someone else, and I don't know about you, but I don't feel inferior to anyone, and I certainly don't feel superior to anyone. There may be certain situations where that can change based on the legal system, but in our general lives, your boss or the CEO of that giant corporation is no more important than you. If there's one thing corporate life has taught me it's that the CEO is just as replaceable as the janitor. Subordination isn't a word used often but it's part of our everyday lives.

It's most commonly used in relation to a hierarchy structure like our place of employment, but for some of us, it's even part of the family structure. We see it in most religiously-based marriage vows where it's expected for the wife to be subordinate to her husband so their vows express that. If you're a young woman considering marriage at some point in the future, here's a concept. It's proven that it's both possible and more effective for managers to work together in an equal partnership. They come up with better ideas and have greater consideration for a broader perspective of the company overall than having one person lead the vision and the other manager lead the people. I know that might be totally mind-boggling to some that managers can work side-by-side instead of overriding each other all the time, but when people reach a consensus together rather than being dictated to, they have more skin in the game and they stay focused on the end goal because they're part owners of the concept.

If two people, who at one point likely never knew each other before being hired by some company to work on a project together–if they can work together as equal partners when managing large groups of employees, we can also be equal partners with our spouses when managing a few kids. A manager is basically all we are as parents. We're the managers of our households. Our husbands can be co-managers. There is no need for a CEO in a family unit, in fact, it's toxic to a relationship because it discounts one person's feelings and removes them from consideration in many life changing financial decisions that often lead to divorce. Could more divorces be avoided if more men were willing to be equal partners with their spouses instead of trying to be King of their condo? 

If you or someone you know has ever been fired for insubordination that just means failure to follow commands, but why would our employers give commands? They don’t own us. They are leasing our time and services. We own our time and services though, so they should not be giving commands. They can place an order just as any customer would. We should treat our employers as though they are our customers because they are. We are providing them a service, and they are paying us to do so. Just as they have the right to refuse service to anyone, so do we. We should work to fulfill each order our employer places with us as part of our contractual obligations for maintaining employment, and we should do so with courtesy and consideration of their brand because that is what best represents our personal brand, but no employer has any business giving us commands. It is their job to submit the order and our job to perform the duty of order fulfillment to the best of our ability and they need to trust in our expertise to perform in good faith. If they're micromanaging, they're not acting in good faith.

 The whole concept of insubordination in the workplace is just icky to me. Historically, who takes commands, really? Slaves take commands.

Free thinking people who are paid to do a job don't accept commands. We are responsible for our own agency and personal conduct as individuals. If we're hired to perform a job, they must've hired us because we have the skills they need. They can do the job themselves, but they don't want to or they have other duties that require their time, right? If your boss is micromanaging your work, that's a clear indicator they've delegated out too much work. They didn’t leave enough for themselves. Never work for a micromanager. If you come across a micromanager, you should politely point it out to them and start looking for another job.

The best way to handle a micromanaging employer is to say, "I appreciate your guidance so I can perform to company standards, but I do need to be able to work without constant interruptions. The feedback is important for improvement so I appreciate you taking the time to share your insights, but I feel like I'm getting distracted too much because by the time you give me feedback on something, I've already moved onto something else, and that takes my attention away from that thing and increases my chance of messing up on that too. Is it possible to schedule a quality review of my performance once a week?" That, by the way, is the sign of a good manager. A manager should be monitoring our work for areas of improvement and sharing feedback and insights in a weekly one on one. Our daily interactions with our managers should be to build rapport, loyalty, and strengthen our bond. If we're constantly talking about mistakes, we can't build trust. A manager should be focused on all the good, highlighting the successes and talents of the team, not micromanaging employees, and airing every employee mistake to the entire crew.

We should take care in how we conduct ourselves and transact with others, but we don't have to accept commands. When we start receiving commands in the workplace, that's when it becomes clear that we aren't free to establish our own method or style of individual agency. When I speak of individual agency, I mean our right as individuals to conduct ourselves in a manner that matches our morals and provides the duties and services we were contracted for in the way we see fit for the greatest quality output. Basically, if I'm performing a task for you, tell me the end goal and I'll make it happen, but don't bark out commands or micromanage how I do things.

It's okay to offer criticisms for iterative improvements, but don't demand me to do things any particular way. And never ask me to do anything that compromises my morals. I'm not going to harm another being emotionally or physically for anyone or for any amount of money. I refuse to commit fraud or misrepresent the company for profit. I'm not going to agree to do anything that is harmful in any way to any other member of society even if that's the business model. So don't ask me to do it, and we won't have a problem. That's what I mean about personal agency. It's the right to say no when something crosses a line. For a quick example, if I was working for a bakery and they turned away a gay couple wanting to buy a wedding cake, I would be morally forced to oppose and if they tried to reprimand me for it, I would have to quit, loudly. I also respect the individual's right to do the same if a bakery served someone they didn't want to serve. Say there was a racist employee who refused to serve any non-white patrons. The employer is well within their right to reprimand the employee for their behavior (especially because their actions are illegal) and it's the employee's right to quit in protest, loudly.

Refusing to serve someone because their existence goes against a religious belief? –That concept goes against every moral fiber of my being.

Personally, and this is just my opinion, but I think it should be illegal for anyone to own or operate a place of employment if their personal beliefs prevent them from serving the public without discrimination. I think refusing service needs to be reserved for the entitled, rude, inappropriate, and aggressive individuals of the world. Let me be a little more clear because that may sound like I'm saying religious people shouldn't be allowed to operate a business, but that's not what I'm saying. I think that business owners making shadow policies that fail to serve part of the public because their personal beliefs supersede their moral character, should be allowed to own a business, but they should NOT be allowed to hire employees. There needs to be a national standard for employers, and they should not be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on any employee, and so they should be required to operate their business with independent contractors or contracted agencies only. So basically, the agency is responsible for the employee, and the employer is responsible for their pay. I honestly don't care who a person prays to, or what color their skin is. Their money has equal value. If they are courteous to the employees and all other patrons, they should be served. If they at any point request anything inappropriate or conduct themselves in a threatening or disrespectful manner - they can get the F out.

 That being said, if I was the employer of an establishment and someone walked in with a swastika tattoo and my employee refused to provide service to that person based on their personal beliefs, I would have a decision to make. Would I reprimand them? I could–since the person wasn't actively harming anyone. But no, I wouldn't reprimand them because they weren't breaking the law. They weren't discriminating against the person, they're against that person's ideology. An ideology is not a religion or a demographic, it's more like a philosophy. Philosophy isn't true or false, or even a belief, it's more like a concept. Someone might agree with the philosophy and make that their personal mantra, but it's not protected from discrimination because it's just an idea. We're allowed to discriminate against an idea, and it's actually required for critical thinking.

If someone spreads hate, fear, and calls for women and anyone of non-Arian demographic to submit to the superiority of white-males–that goes against my personal philosophy of anti-authoritarian, anti-subordination, and anti-slavery. Also, that does not make me anti-establishment or anti-government. The government does have a role to play in society, I'm no anarchist, but I do agree with a lot of anarchist concepts.

The government is a group of managers so they don't need to be ordained with any so-called sovereign powers, they're just there to manage things.  We should be calling our president, "the marketing manager elect", the supreme court, "the legal managers", and the congress, "the community policy managers"–just a thought. I would not object to my employees refusing service to someone who flaunts their hateful ideology. They have a right to peaceful protest, and what's more peaceful than refusing interaction? That's just my opinion though.

As the employer, if an employee chose to serve a person with a swastika tattoo I would object to that, but not publicly. What if they didn't see it? What if they didn't even know what a swastika stands for? I would leave it up to the employee to perform the job how they see fit. It's not my place to tell my employee how to do their job, just what needs to be done. My personal philosophy is that money is not just money. I'm aware that services to pseudo-terrorist organizations that promote white supremacy are dangerous and I would not want to support any of their activity in any way. But as long as serving them isn't actively illegal, it would not be ethical for me to reprimand an employee for performing the duties of their job, even if I find it distasteful. Our only obligation as employees is to obey the law. Nazi ideology and white supremacy philosophy is not protected from discrimination under the law, so it's our right to refuse service.

As an employer, it may be within our rights to object to any employee who provides service to a Nazi, but because it's not illegal to do so, it would be unethical to reprimand an employee for it. Since it's not illegal to discriminate against an ideology, it's also unethical to reprimand an employee for refusing service. It is within my right as an employer to terminate any employee whose actions or behaviors don't align with the business philosophy, but it's not within my right either legally or ethically to force them to go against their moral objections. Providing a service does not make us someone's doormat. They don't get to walk all over us and treat us like crap because we're providing a service. Our employers are our clients. Their customers are our clients. We must be free agents who can choose what contracts we enter into. In order to achieve this reality, we must act like free agents. We must demand better treatment.

On a side note: One thing that would give all of us far more leniency to choose our employers more carefully is Universal Basic Income. Check out the article by Leon Zadok, Universal Basic Income - Emancipation of our work ethic from December 3, 2020.

In modern-day society, there's only one scenario where insubordination terminology belongs in the workplace, and that's involving safety. Safety requirements are for the benefit of the employee as much as to reduce liability for the employer and ensure the safety of the public. If a direct command or order regarding safety is ignored or disobeyed, it can have deadly consequences. It's also against the law in most circumstances and I bring this up because I was a safety coordinator for many years, retrofitting a hospital to comply with Osha standards.

If you wonder why there are so many Kens and Karens in the world, this is exactly why. We're still in the very first generation of people living outside the realm of acceptable human exploitation. I'm always trying to remind people that segregation only ended 18 years before I was born. My parents, grandparents, and many of my aunts, uncles, and older cousins all lived during the time when it was illegal for black people to use the same bathroom, much less eat at the same table with a white person. Back then, the traditional motto used by the service industry was, "the customer is always right." Back in the late 90s when I first started working it was still very much that way. Let's talk about why.

The customer used to set the tone and the server was required by their employer to be subordinate to the customer. They were required to be subordinate under all circumstances. It used to be punishable by fines and even prison time for breaking employee contracts, so people were afraid to speak out against poor treatment by employers. Customers would often bully employers to fire any employees who underperformed or they didn't like for any reason, especially non-white employees. How did it get that way? The answer is through vagrancy laws. Vagrancy is the state of being homeless or unemployed. This included all the poor and was extended to peddlers and gamblers or anyone without an employment contract. Anyone who wasn't employed all year was fined for all the time they were without a job. If they couldn't pay, they went to prison and became forced slave labor.

This is exactly why so many entitled white Americans throw terrible tantrums in public when they come across any resistance to their whims. They want what they want and they want it now and it's your job to give it to them, so if you can't give them exactly what they want with exceptional quality at a less than exceptional price and never say no, they will have you fired knowing full well it used to have catastrophic repercussions. They yearn for the days when they wielded so much power. That's what Make America Great Again means to them. 

The concept of subordination is incompatible with equality and freedom, but this concept is rampant throughout our society. It's part of pretty much every aspect of our lives. Subordination means inferior. So if you've ever been fired for failing to be inferior to your employer, you should be proud. You didn't compromise your morals or personal character to appease them. You thought for yourself, even if it was poor judgment, it's something that made you stop and think about it, and those are the best learning opportunities we get in life. Learn from it, grow, and know your worth.

Resources:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2006/04/group#:~:text=News%20%26%20Events-,Groups%20Perform%20Better%20than%20the%20Best%20Individuals%20at%20Solving%20Complex,in%20boosting%20problem%2Dsolving%20skills.

https://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-board-50th-anniversary/southern-black-codes.html

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1969/june-6/love-honor-and-obey.html

https://www.liveabout.com/honor-and-obey-christian-vows-3490514