Life has so many ironical twists. Sometimes I wonder if I am just the puppet of some extremely wicked and trollish entity who likes to tease me into submission. There’s also the possibility that I’m missing out on the cosmic humor the Universe enjoys displaying.
Whichever the underlying reality behind this, the fact remains I ended up working for Monsanto without knowing it.
How funny this happened while working on a project that seeks to restore soil health and local flora into the place I live in. Suddenly, bam! The Universe stabs me in the back. I think the Universe is fucking obsessed with tolerance so it insists on making me live situations I don’t like to force me into accepting them. Jeez, just take it easy will you? You’re gonna end up breaking some humans if you keep it up like this.
Coming back to the actual story, you might ask how the hell I got to working for Monsanto without even knowing it. I was offered to work for two weeks harvesting carrot seeds. It payed decently and the people hiring were family to Evelina, the owner of the house I live in. Also, the job was free of contract and I thought that made it more local in some way.
Since they were country people with joyful positive personalities and interesting stories I thought it would be nice to work with them. And it was.
It wasn’t heavy work, just trim the dry flower from the plant and put it in a sack. The working group was nice, Evelina and two other women; mother and daughter were my chatty and lovely companions. Sometimes the “chiefs” would join in the work and tell some fun stories as well.
It was obvious that these plants were fed with agrochemicals and not grown with any regard for sustainability. But I was ok with it because I thought, “well not all people know of other agricultural techniques and maybe in time I could influence the situation into something I consider positive”.
But that thought was stepped on when I saw a sign that the plants belonged to Bayer. I was curious as to what use they gave the seeds, as well as what were the particular characteristics of this strain. Also I had no idea Bayer was into agriculture but didn’t think much more on the issue.
The work continued to be nice, sometimes the heat of the scorching sun that fills this land got hard to stand, but the conversation and the trance provided by monotonous work helped to deal with it. One day I was asked to participate in the threshing of the seeds and I had to move around big amounts of flowers with those big farming forks. I had fun, and did a lot of exercise, already feel those abs getting tighter.
Everything went fine until today. I had to help unload a cart with seeds and had some time alone with one of the chiefs. I took the chance to ask more about the strain of carrots and what they were growing them for. He then told me that this was all actually work for Monsanto as they had bought Bayer (it was actually the other way around but this is what he said) and rebranded to recover from the damage their public image had suffered.
I was pretty shocked though I disguised it. I’ve learned to never get into direct discussions with people about the ethics of where they make their living as they are counter-productive. The person will take a defensive stance and you will be drained of your energies by frustration. Better to wait for the right moment to offer a good example of other choices.
So I after I was happily working (thing that is rare because I usually hate grindy works) and life throws me that smack in the face. Does it always have to be such a comedian? Anyway, I’m already used to these little jokes and I think they have the purpose to teach.
I’ve thought a lot about what life was trying to teach me through this experience so here’s what I’ve come up with:
- I underestimated the people that hired me thinking that they were “unaware” of the harm they were causing. In time I learned that they had enough knowledge to do things differently but money was more important to them. Lesson: Never underestimate anyone, no matter how humble they seem.
- I’ve always had a battle against monotonous work. This time I tried breathing deeply and focusing on my inner awareness. I ended up enjoying the labors a lot! At least the days that I was ignorant of whom I really worked for were quite good. Lesson: When you have to grind, breathing deeply will turn it into meditation instead of work.
- I realized that I always end up working in not ideal places because I don’t make the best use of my “free time”. When things are chill I tend to relax a bit too much. With the diversity of options for making income, I should already be able to make decent money without unwanted employers. Lesson: There is no such thing as “free time”, every moment is a decision that outlines a new future. Use it wisely.
- The Universe didn’t do this to me, I did it myself. I didn’t really need to make money at this moment and I took a job anyway because I wanted to give myself a little boost to my crypto investments. Lesson: Don’t play the victim, take responsibility for your actions.
I only have like 3 or 4 days left of work so it’s not a big deal I think, not going to save or destroy the Earth by finishing the job. Afterwards, invest in passive income both on Steem and Tron blockchain, and there! One step closer to having a better financial situation without working for those I don’t want to serve.
Now that I think about it, it’s pretty illegal for Monsanto to have people working without a contract. I wonder if I was to take legal action who would get hurt. Probably my direct employers and not the company. Anyone with enough legal knowledge to shine a light on the matter around?
On the bright side, my little soil regeneration project is working out quite nicely. Now that I have something interesting to show I’m regretting the death of my phone a bit as I have no means of taking pictures. Guess I’ll have to take the computer outside and use it’s awful camera. It’s something, right?
Never ever under estimate anyone, anything @tipu curate
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Tough one, gotta work on it! Thanks for the support :D
We can never know anything entirely for what it is. Even ourselves.
At least it pays good and you're gonna put the cash to good use! May you succeed!
Wise and truthful words. Thanks!
This experience has taught you some good lessons!
Yes it did, thanks for stopping by!
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I was involved in a similar discussion elsewhere not that long ago where we felt that about everything belonged to about 5 companies, and there's just no escaping. Nestle is my personal bogeyman. Can't stand them. But can't escape them either.
It would seem that way. Hope the promise of crypto coming to free us financially from these groups delivers! What do you think, is it possible?
I don't know. I really think an upheaval and massive change is right around the corner, and it both terrifies and excites me. I do think, from an economic perspective, that capitalism works great until it becomes "too big to fail," which is where we're at now. I have similar beliefs for socialism; in small neighbourhoods it's great, but on large scales it fails. On small scales, both capitalism and socialism give more power to the common person. On large scales it becomes more centralised with either big business or government.
I have a lot of concerns about crypto replacing fiat, not because I'm a proponent of fiat, but because crypto isn't yet "stable" (look at the massive price fluctuations we've seen as compared to traditional fiat). I think if any crypto is going to be a replacement it will need to be a POS or DPOS crypto like Steem or Dash, not a POW crypto like Bitcoin. POS systems are more democratic.
Sounds good, bring it on!
Perhaps the lesson is that we can achieve greater organization if we work in the smaller scale.
Agree 100% with you.
We are on similar journeys ☺️
“The Universe is fucking obsessed with tolerance”
This is how we build up the yin energy. I like to see it as a paradigm of will/acceptance, but acceptance comes first before will because otherwise we fall flat on our faces, or end up hurting people or hurting ourselves more, at least this is my experience.
“Just not lest ye be judged”. I’m not dogmatic bu any means, these words just popped into my mind reading this and I can relate them to our similar experiences. While answering the eco train question of the week about judgement I said that I judge as a way to decide which direction I want to go and where I want to put my energy, not as a way to condemn others and say that they should do this or that. This has been a challenge but one with surprisingly timely results.
A few months ago I might doubt the direct employees saying “how could they support this?” But you know what doubting others like that got me before? It got me finding myself in situations where I felt ready to compromise my values. Funny how it works :-).
I love your presence here at steem. And your I hope we get to know each other better
And nice music too!
Acceptance is so tricky.. can't help confusing it with giving up when I think rationally. Then I remember it's got to do more with energy than with not doing anything about anything.
Seems like a good approach, will try to keep it in mind.
Thanks, for sure! Same here ;)
Glad you liked it, thanks for visiting!
I try to see it as giving up of all things outside myself. I can still put energy into what I believe without thinking or caring much what goes on outside of that. It’s hard. The situation in HK really helped me to grow out of it though. When I saw a woman pleading to cops get pepper sprayed it triggered me in every way and i spent the next week recovering my senses and after that I’ve been doing much better at this. It’s all about faith really, not faith in anything in particular, just life in general.
I will go back and listen again. There was one song that would be fun to jam along with!
Yeah, hard to just accept injustice. But I get your meaning.
Awesome, feel free to record and share on any platform you want ;)
I thought Bayer bought Monsanto. ?
That's the story he told me... but you're right, a quick search says that Bayer bought Monsanto. Will edit, thanks!
You're welcome. This way we get to combine our medicines with pesticides. Kinda gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. ;)
Hahahah, specially fuzzy
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Oh LIFE, it is a trickster sometimes. Really crazy how insidious those humongous corporations are. Thanks for the reminder to keep trying to get better and better at gardening right here in our own yard!
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