JumpOff said:
Yes - I stand corrected - I often confuse the lables for these groups. Labels often don't make any sense to me anyway. I am speaking of the group that owns their own home and makes their monthly payments (barely), - but has been trained to fear slipping down and to envy those above. Is this called the lower middle class? Socrates refers to these folks as the ones who keep the treadmill going...
Not everybody who is on a treadmill conforms to class structure.
There are different treadmills for differnt people, some make treadmills of their own making and relentlessly strive to go up and up by working all the hours that god sends, by taking on heavier and heavier committments, and the final target is lost because the very excercise of seeking to attain becomes the raison d'etre itself. These people are workaholics.
They are to be found in the professions, mainly, sometimes in the arts. They are the victims of broken marriages, dysfunctional relationships, and many end up leading fundamentally unhappy lives owing to all their energies being diverted and concentrated on achieving material gain, which when achieved for them is a pyrrhic victory.
Typical Habitat : Capital Cities.
Another category of treadmill is what is classed as "the company man". The company man is obsessed with beavering away at his job, and places his job first in his scale of priorities, including friends, neighbours, relatives, children, wives, so that no one or anything matters except "the job". This individual is so obsessed that he fails to notice how it is that the infrastructure of family and friends and relatives and ordinary life we all take for granted as normal has crumbled as a consequence of his dereliction of attention owing to his obsession and persistence with his "job". This is the type of individual who volunteers to work on a weekend, whether paid or unpaid, who waddles about heaving a heavy briefcase full of papers that he takes home every night, (because the office hours are not long enough, because there is no one to do it, because he can do it better, because he will be noticed and given a better job, and so on., ) He is the individual you see on trains late in the evening on the way home, worrying and fretting, surrounded by papers, the calculator, the mobile phone that keeps on ringing, this is the compulsive, driven executive, prime candidate for a heart attack, and the first, to his anger, to be made redundant at the first reshuffle.
( Typical Habitat: Leafy Suburbia )
Another category of treadmill is that of what is classed as "underrated". This is the individual who is conciencious, decent , loyal, hardworking, honest, but is never noticed or promoted because what he is doing is absolutely reliable and there is hidden vested interest that he should be kept at it as there is not anyone in the immediate vicinity who could do it better or more consciencously than he, and besides, the salary is not that great. He becomes a victim of his own success, which is to be totally reliable and compliant. It is not until it is too late that he realises his own potential and by that time ageism has overcome his possibilities within the frame he occupies. (Habitat : Possibly Bachelor Flat)
Another is that of the "high flyer". This creature is a wonder to observe. He will do anything for money. he is prepared at the drop of a hat to fly round the world to bring back an acorn, just to show off and please his boss. He is the worst type of individual to encounter in the workplace because he has no morals whatsoever, the object of the excercise is to chase money by whatever means. Colleagues are there to be used, trampled upon, double crossed, anything, absolutely anything, just to get ahead and have a bigger car, and a better house, and membership of a better golf club (networking, you know, nudge nudge., ) and so on. ( Typical Habitat : Ostentatious Detatched Residence)
I mean, I could write a book on this topic alone. No, to be on a treadmill does not necessarily imply working class, or middle class or aristocracy or otherwise it means that the individual is not free, owing to a daily obligation or commitment that is systematic. He is therefore not in control of his own use of time in a flexible context , mainly but there are other considerations.
