Here's a question for you:
You have the option of going to work for a company that will provide you with food, clothing, housing, transportation, health care, and a small stipend (say $1000/month). What they provide is corporate-sponsored, not really your choice. Not extravagant, but functional. In exchange, you work for them, you go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do. Nothing outrageous: you won't be sold into sex slavery or be forced to work 80-hour weeks for months on end, but it's hard work, and you could be moved to a new place at a moment's notice. The term is a five-year contract; if you decide to leave, there is a financial penalty and you have to pay back some percentage of what the company has put into you. During that five-year tenure, you are only allowed company-approved communications (TV shows, internet sites, phone calls, etc.) and your communications will be monitored with an eye on corporate security.
There will be corporate-sponsored recreation facilities that you will be encouraged to choose over outside recreations. Things like health clubs, pool, movies, nightclubs, arcades will be available at a reduced cost (say 25% of "retail") and exclusive to the employees. Day care and K-12 education will be provided by the company at no additional expense.
You have the option of going to work for a company that will provide you with food, clothing, housing, transportation, health care, and a small stipend (say $1000/month). What they provide is corporate-sponsored, not really your choice. Not extravagant, but functional. In exchange, you work for them, you go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do. Nothing outrageous: you won't be sold into sex slavery or be forced to work 80-hour weeks for months on end, but it's hard work, and you could be moved to a new place at a moment's notice. The term is a five-year contract; if you decide to leave, there is a financial penalty and you have to pay back some percentage of what the company has put into you. During that five-year tenure, you are only allowed company-approved communications (TV shows, internet sites, phone calls, etc.) and your communications will be monitored with an eye on corporate security.
There will be corporate-sponsored recreation facilities that you will be encouraged to choose over outside recreations. Things like health clubs, pool, movies, nightclubs, arcades will be available at a reduced cost (say 25% of "retail") and exclusive to the employees. Day care and K-12 education will be provided by the company at no additional expense.
Does this sound like an attractive option?
Absolutely not
11(45.8%)
If I was completely desperate, maybe
10(41.7%)
That actually sounds interesting
2(8.3%)
Hell yes! Sign me up!
1(4.2%)
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magicmarmot- Tom Ramcigam
- Magic Marmot Studios
Comments
And, frankly, when I needed to get a start in life it was a really good choice for me.
Hello? The Army? Thanks no.
I could deal with wearing company approved clothing. That would be more or less the same as, say, wearing a policeman's uniform if I was a cop. Fashion isn't something to get that worked up about.
Oh, and I think what you're describing here is, sadly, the future. This will be life for the average American in not too long.
Like others have said, constraining my communications and media access is the big killer. Otherwise, as avindair pointed out it does sound rather like the military and, having grown up there, I can say that the military does indeed have its merits (and flaws, which are rapidly growing in the current political climate...)
What scares me most is that I could see this sort of thing really catching on. I could see corporations offering it, and young decent people in a tight spot jumping at it... to come out the other end five years later shaped to a specific corporate paradigm. Which, of course, would be precisely why they offered such contracts in the first place...
In fact, the most likely place I could see this catching on first would be in the "military privatization" sectors of the economy, simply because they could easily adapt the style and structure of military life and training to corporate ends.
And now I'm shuddering...