My work my rights - an ad that was just there.

I saw this ad... and wondered.

"We want

Job opportunities and stopping arbitrary lay offs

And

Periodic salary increase and transport fees

#for_a_wholistic_social_coverage"

OK, according to the internet the NGO behind this ad is "my work my rights" - as per their story in 2018 three partners "Legal Agenda", "Lebanese Observatory for Worker and Employee Rights" (LOWER) and Oxfam Lebanon backed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation started the NGO in question.

Here's my issue. Why am I seeing this ad? Who is it destined for? How does it bring any change or visibility to their (worthwhile) demands? Was this the best way to spend the money? Did anyone notice the ad? Did it bring about any chain reaction or domino effect? Would workers/employees mobilize after seeing this ad? Would employers have an ethical spark?

The ad stood there like a sore thumb, barely readable because it had too many words, with a # that basically I have no idea who will use it. As I said, the demands are correct, just and fair (I quit my own employment because I was putting money rather than earning!). But no idea why this ad was there.

Labor Day: Am I unemployed? It's complicated.

Source

So yesterday was Labor Day, which begged the question: What am I to celebrate? Am I - gulp - unemployed? Actually, it's complicated. Sometime in 2006 I was working as an advisor to a professor at a very reputed university in Lebanon, the professor in question looked at me and said "you know you are on your way to become unemployable. Not unemployed, unemployable" - and of course she saw what I did not see myself at the time - I was swiftly disentangling from the classical "work". You know, the one everyone moans about - inside companies, on a very strict timetable, etc, etc... What was I replacing it with however? Well, unbeknown to me, there was a different equation being set up.

When I shifted from regular (read "classical") work, I went on to morph to become more and more as a teacher and consultant. Sometimes I dabble in naming, logos, strategies, run of the mill conceptual copywriting, etc. Sure, if you are reading this you know me via my "public image" (the blog, maybe also the art), which was kept very aside from the main money-making business (many people suggested I entangle both but I still think this will not be "me" as I insist on keeping the two entities separate). 

Of course, in the meantime, I was stashing money on the side, but with Lebanon falling apart at the seams on all fronts - all the planning and very wise money-management all came to naught. All of last year, save for a two very small projects (one of them was supposed to be humongous but got killed by the Corona) there was nothing. The Hollywood film did not materialize, and the project in Oman died with the Sultan - both where supposed to be exceptionally lucrative.

Still, here we are this does not answer the question: Am I unemployed?

Well, to misquote Star Trek: "it's jobs, Jim, but not as we know it". So yes, I do not consider myself employed in the way people expect employment to be, and having left my teaching job in 2019 because it became more cost-effective to remain home, it does not mean I am out of the game (seriously, if you only know how many theses I am involved in behind-the-scenes you'd faint), but again: What works for me does not work for anyone else, am fine thank-you-very-much. So I indeed still employed but not in capacities that people associate "work" with. 

So I did celebrate Labor Day. Not that I did much though! Wait, isn't that the point?