Punching Timeclocks in the Nose

Was it a scene in the Travolta film Urban Cowboy where I first hear this song?  Or was it because it got so much radio play in the late 70s and early 80s, no doubt requested by countless frustrated denizens who were fed up with all the corporate B.S. they’d been fed in every kind of PR dish imaginable?  It’s a song one can’t help but like, its simple laid-back workingman’s sentiment finally unleashed with nonchalant fury:  “Take this job and shove it, I ain’t workin’ here no more” was to employers what “We don’t need no education” was to institutions of so-called education.  To hear it meant solidarity, union, a spirit of community (that, sadly, started disappearing with the full-on encroachment of suburbs around this time).

My first and only factory job is the one I’ll always recall first when I hear the song now.  I got a job in one of the highest-paying carpet mills in north Georgia, 1991, just out of high school.  In a year’s time I’d worked all three shifts, sometimes overlapping, often clocking in over 70 hours a week (overtime mandatory).  I learned quickly that because of high taxes on the working-class (who else pays them?), my bring-home pay for 30 more hours a week even at time-and-a-half pay was barely a couple hundred dollars more than for a base 40 hour week.  Additionally, I injured my back and had no way to prove it was work-related.

After a year and a half of being exploited by even (and especially) the most prestigious of companies, I was walking to the timeclock one day and following an old man who seemed to be limping with one leg and yet also dragging the stronger leg he was limping on.  I couldn’t get past him, so I clocked in a couple minutes late, which meant I was docked 15 minutes of pay.  I saw myself as that old man I’d been following… and Paycheck’s song came to me at that moment.  I turned in my two-week notice a couple days later and promised myself I’d never again punch a timecard.  It’s a promise I’ve fortunately (with great luck) been able to keep since.