Fighting the Tides

I want to talk about work.

Which sucks because I am writing this in my free time, but I specifically want to talk about something that I think a lot of us have probably been feeling about our jobs lately. I want to talk about how it feels to be stuck in a position where you know every day you are fighting the same problems and no matter how well you do the system itself prevents the problems from ever being fixed.

It feels like trying to fight the tides.

I work a job in U.S. health insurance. Not directly for an insurance company, but as someone who helps people understand their insurance and who tries to fix problems when they inevitably arise. Every single day I have interactions that remind me not only of how evil the U.S. healthcare system is, but also that it just fundamentally does not work. Every day I talk to people who are going through some of the worst times of their lives, and on top of that they have to deal with a system that is not even able to do its evil properly. From denying claims that were approved for the exact same thing a week before, to requesting paperwork that when received still does not update in a person’s account, the health insurance companies of the U.S. are horrible.

But we all already know that. The real problem that I have not been able to stop thinking about today is that I see the same problems. Every. Single. Day. I cannot get off my mind that in the immediate-term I can help each individual I talk to solve their immediate problem. I know what paperwork to get my hands on. I know when to call a doctor’s office and ask if they can change coding on a claim. I can help people individually in navigating this impossible system. The problem is that no matter how many hundreds of people I talk to a week in fixing these things, the next week is going to be the same. Nothing I am doing will prevent these same arcane issues from popping up again and again, slowing down or preventing people from getting healthy.

I think that one of the major problems we in the working class are collectively sharing is this feeling of knowing that the system itself is not working but feeling like we cannot fix it. It is a massive reason why so many of us are completely dissatisfied with our employment. In the West, we have lost so many jobs where any of us actually feel like we are creating something positive in the world. Or even that we are doing something tangible. Each and every day we show up, send some emails or make some phone calls, and see that nothing is improving. If anything, most of our lives feel like they are getting worse. We can afford less, we have fewer places to go in public with our friends, the infrastructure we rely on day to day is collapsing, and the things our governments deem important seem to be completely at odds with what we actually want.

It feels like trying to fight the tides.

But there is hope. One thing we have forgotten, but can remember, is that the workers hold the power. When we think of our jobs as the working class, think of how even one day of not working would completely stop the systems making our lives worse. I alone cannot fix the system. No matter how many individuals I help in a day in making their lives a bit easier, the next day will be the same. But if we, the working people, put our feet down and say enough, who would be able to stop us? We see the problems in our industries. We have ideas on how to make things better. And without us, the industries shut down. We have the power to fix things, but we cannot wait for someone to do it for us. The working class can take power and make things better for everyone, not just the few at the top.

We can fight the tides together.