HOW DID WE EVEN GET HERE?

Imagine my surprise when, news reports will say…”No One in America wants to work anymore!” The projection of a reality where meritocracy no longer governs our ability to make it ahead in this world is so incredibly distressing in 2026, considering that all I have ever wanted to do is work, and have that work be considered a valuable addition to the success of any project. For over twenty years, however, Ive been repeating this cycle of work hard, harder than before, seek to improve process, establish realistic procedure…get fired. New York is a free will employment state, which unfortunately means employers are allowed to dismiss employees at any point, for any reason, and never have to justify those decisions in the eyes of the government. Does anyone really want to work, not necessarily…but there are certainly an overwhelming amount of people who want to put the work in…and there are others who simply seek to benefit from other’s efforts…”it’s just business, baybeeee"

When I look back on it now, with who I am today, I’m sure I would have walked away from every terrible work environment sooner if nothing else for self-preservation…but I stayed and toiled, because I still am of the mind that merit would prevail, and the possibility of establishing more ethical workspaces would be just around the corner…at every bend.

And yet, I’ve never forgotten the words that one of my bosses told me at the end of a seven year work ‘trip’, he said to me:

‘Adriaan, you know you’re expendable right?’‍ ‍

Seven long years of holding myself accountable for every failure and being truly proud of every success, and learning, and teaching and managing new crews, and really feeling like it was reaching sustainability despite all of the repeated abuses of power by unqualified management…and I was the one labeled expendable. The rejection was a hard one to bare, but I felt at long last relieved, as if the weight of being seen or valued was finally identified as the worlds heaviest material; without any chance of shifting that mass. It was seven years down, with nothing so much as a kind word, just a gentle passive nudge out the door. Occasionally I will meet up with folks from that time, and they will ask how things have been, and I’ll respond “yknow, always and never the same ol’ story.”

If this were you, how do you put that on a resume? How would you synopsize the experience so that next time you work you can avoid such an occasion. Hell, if winners are the ones who make sales, what are the on-paper-losers supposed to do? Ive never lost my affinity for building, and developing community around art and fabrication. The nature of that caring has changed, sure, but the thing itself is intuitive to who I am; and I refuse to think that there’s no room for responsibilty and ethics in productive industries.

So to try to answer the president’s statement about work ethics…its not that noone wants to work. I think thats a extremely reductive perspective that IMO is nothing more than an attempt to push the idea of meritocracy on to laborers. In doing so, they create a duality where managers blame labor for shortages, and laborers are forever branded as useful tools. I reckon a wiser man than me once said however…only a bad carpenter blames their tools.

“Green Acres” - MBD2026 (sourced photgraphy, digital collage)

“ZenThou%and” - MBD2026 (sourced photography, generative art, digital collage)