No one can tell you haow not to be a slave in today's world. Google 'never worked and never will' for the only answer to that. All we can tell you is stuff about jobs and money. You have two options—at least legally—for persuading people to give you money in exchange for what you do.
The first, the one you are in now, is where 'they' (commonly called the employer) have no shortage of workers available and eager for their jobs, which they have de-skilled and regulated to a level that allows for pretty smooth, easy replacement of anyone who leaves. It's been a management technique since the invention of agriculture, Ford and others adapted it to industry and the computer age has moved it up into the office towers. "We don't demand much, we don't pay much, but you do have to be there and you have to do it". You're always gonna be taking it on their terms. You might do a tad better where a union that could go toe-to-toe, but that adverserial system really just amounts to a slave-revolt and changes nothing important. Union and management just incorporate a new level of decision-making and carry on the game they're both invested in. "Y'all gots tuh find a new Massuh yuh likes—and many, many do—or run off".
The other is to develop desirable skills and knowledge that has them coming to you; commonly that'll make you a freelance contractor, and give you some leverage in setting terms and rewards. There's also a host of hybrid mixes between the two extremes. In theory management and executive, even long-term hires, all would come under this head. Now you'll have top make the guys with money aware that you exist, aware that they need you, and that your rate is a bargain compared to the exorbitant rates your competitors want for their lesser competence. Then they'll dump you when their need is done, or a flashier prospect arrives. Again, a union might be of some help—the guys with the money always call the shots, and you may need help dealing with the inevitable stupid, unfair or harmful ones—and the NHLPA, or ACTRA, OMA and all sorts of professional bodies are examples of unions for stars, not slaves. At the very least they give the guys hiring a place to look for the talent.
But ultimately there's a Shakespeare line you should be pondering:
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings.
It's up to you, to figure out what you are. How you make your money doesn't determine it. Read on to the post that follows.
