The Plantation

Plantations, agriculturally speaking, are a large artificially established forest or farm.  Crops are grown for sale in distant areas rather than for local markets.  Since I live in the United States, the references will be to the plantations of the old south where, tobacco, sugar cane and cotton were grown. 

Prior to the Civil War, plantations used slave labor to pick, pack and haul the crops to markets.  Slavery was an unimaginable horror to those who experienced it.  After the slaves were freed, there was another form of slavery with the light of hope at the end of the bondage. 

Some freed men and women worked portions of the now defunct plantations with the idea that they were buying their piece of property while working their crops.  Unfortunately, the landowners were sometimes disreputable and would make the contract practically nil by adding fees and costs to their "handling" of the crop.  It was much like the credit cards of today.  Pay the minimum amount due and that $1,000.00 balance will be paid in 3 to 5 years.  They wound up never truly owning their property and still working for the owner of the plantation.  They did have the knowledge that they were indeed free and their family would not be separated due to the whim of the master. 

There were many cruel and sadistic task masters during that time.  There were also some who owned slaves only to keep them out of the clutches of others.  Regardless of how you look at it, it was still slavery. 

Fast forward to today.  With the exception of human trafficking (slavery) in the news from time to time, you hear little about it.  There is a plantation mentality among the elitists of this country that truly defies logic.

They want to "take care of us" because we are too stupid to take care of ourselves. 

They want to give us the home they think we need.

They want to give our children what they think they need and if it pleases them to take our children away from us.

They want to give us the medical care they think we need and determine what we need based on their grand observations.

The list goes on and on.  If you can think it, they want to do it to you and control how it is done to you.

If it is not bad enough, there are businesses that profess to be conservative thinking but they treat the workers as though they are still on a plantation.  

Not true?  Just keep reading.  They locate in a rural area.  They build their business on the backs of hardworking men and women paying them minimum wage or slightly above.  When it comes to getting a supervisor, they hire from without because they truly believe that no one who works a menial job has any sense whatsoever.  They have no faith in their own workers to produce mentally above what they consider minimum wage mental standards.

While they publicly promote and sing the praises of the wives of the men who have been their employee a relatively short time, they do absolutely nothing to promote the women who are actually employed by them.  Wonder why that is?  Maybe it is because they really don't think that women should be in charge of a man and as long as it is not within their walls they are okay with it.

Maybe it is because the wives are young and cute and dress well.  Maybe the female workers have been so tied to the job they have had no time to promote themselves professionally.  Maybe they just don't know the right people and their master doesn't think they are worthy of being promoted.  Did I say master?  I meant to say boss, silly me.  I have to say that maybe the boss tells what a great slave they have to others, but they don't want to truly promote them because another master might cause them to run away.   There I go again.  It should be what a great "employee" they have and that another "employer" might hire them.

It might be that the women who have worked for them have worked for years behind the scenes because that was the only way it was allowed to work.  The owner can be viewed much as the "Master" of the old slavery days.  Only he can decide who gets promoted and it is based on gender and even then it comes down to who he likes and who he thinks will look good in that position, or whose nose is the brownest.  It has absolutely nothing to do with ability.

How can I say that?  That is easy.  It is from personal experience.  I don't think they mean to be ignorant and mean-spirited.  Well, I don't know about that anymore.  I used to think they were good, but sorely misguided, people.  I am leaning toward just plain cruel at this point.  Because, just like the slave owner, they can throw away those that they deem unacceptable or who become disabled in spite of years of dedicated service.

I noticed it when they kept a worker who stole a sizable amount of product, lied about it, cussed out a spouse of management, made vulgar phone calls to their residence and several other things.  Why did they keep him?  I don't know.  Maybe because that man wanted to cuss out his wife and didn't have the brass to do it.  Maybe, he finally admitted what he had done and promised to never do it again.

No so with a woman who made an error that was corrected and was repentant.  She was terminated and a man was hired in her place. 

I noticed it when they picked who they gave the benefit of the doubt.  If it was a wife of a middle management man, they believed her over the worker who had given years to the company. 

I noticed it when they made sure that some workers were paid for years and never had to show up for work.  They did not even come into the office but one time. 

I noticed it when they illegally gave medical insurance to people who were friends but who never got a payroll check from their company.  Maybe, it wasn't illegal just a contractual thing, the kind of thing that gets you self-insured.

I noticed it when they convinced some men to come to work for them and paid them "special" compensation over and above what they paid others with the same job.

How many things does a person pay for other people and for themselves before it becomes obvious and they get charged with tax evasion?  Wonder how all that arrogance will work when their wives have to apply for food stamps while they are in jail? 

I told a someone years ago, that I will do as I am told, but don't ever knock me down.  As they walk over me, they might forget that I have long arms and can grab them where it hurts. 

Am I angry?  Yes.  Am I hurt?  I am also depressed and while not suicidal at this time, I do fight the urges to go postal.  Those urges emerge when my insurance claims are denied because they think I have a pre-existing condition and I have to cancel my much needed counseling appointment until that is straightened out.  My appointment is now more than a week overdue and the anxiety is building.  I just hope that the rage doesn't build as well. 

This story is fictitious and any resemblance to living people is purely their fault.