There is a Netflix documentary series called “Broken”. One of the episodes, which I watched a couple days ago now focuses on what they call ‘fast furniture’. ‘Fast furniture’ is like any other ‘fast’ something or other in our modern world–it’s cheap, it’s easy to assemble and isn’t made to last for generations like furniture that you might have purchased in the past.
One of the big baddies of the fast furniture culture/movement/whatever you want to call it that the episode focused on was the Swedish retail giant IKEA. IKEA was made to be the biggest, baddest, most evil fast furniture retailer anywhere on the planet because not only was their founder a possible Nazi (no shit. Seriously.) but they are stripping the planet of wood in an super unhealthy, unsustainable way to feed people’s desire for ever cheaper, easier to assemble, easy to pick up and throw away when you’re tired of it/it gets broken/whatever furniture.
Then there were the toddler deaths, due to one particular dresser (the MALM 6 drawer upright) falling over on them. And the documentary seemed to blame IKEA for this 100% when in reality (and this is going to be an unpopular opinion, so I’m strapping on my helmet and grabbing my shield now, just in case) I believe that both the parents and the company are responsible. I cannot say who is more to blame..the company for making a unit that could so easily tip over, for not warning consumers that it’s easily tippable, for not making more of an effort to get back all of the recalled units. But the parents (again, strictly in my opinion) also share some blame because you’re supposed to baby-proof EVERYTHING to the best of your ability and that includes securing furniture to the wall if you’re afraid that they might climb it and cause it to fall over.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel, honestly. While I do feel empathy for the parents who lost their kids due to dressers falling on them, I don’t want to feel disloyal to the company that has given me my husband back.
For the first time in our nearly 25 year relationship, he works for a company that respects him and treats him like a goddamned human being and not a fucking robot that can work forever without needing sleep or food. I found out last night that if you work a closing shift, then you MUST be off the clock for a minimum of 11 full hours before you’re allowed to clock back in for your next shift. Any sooner than that and you get written up. This blew my fucking mind, y’all.
This is the first Christmas season in all our years of being together where he wasn’t stressed out to the point that he was damn near suicidal because of the lack of sleep, the pressure put on him by his superiors to sell, sell, sell and then sell some more, where he actually had the chance to hang out with us at home and get some fucking sleep and take care of himself because he wasn’t working 14-18 hour days with maybe 3-4 hrs total (due to his 1 hr commute) to sleep/do self care/do other shit in between shifts. It’s the first time since I’ve known him that I haven’t worried about him falling asleep on the way home from work because he was so exhausted he could barely see straight, let alone drive safely. I feel like the quarter century was hell and somehow, we survived. I don’t know how..we were lucky. Extremely so.
If he didn’t have this job, we wouldn’t have affordable health care that’s finally allowing me to get the help I need to figure out what the hell is wrong with me and why I’m in so much pain all the time. I couldn’t sleep last night because it felt like somebody was repeatedly shoving a long hyperodermic needle into my left quad and then withdrawing it really quickly. It hurt like hell and nothing I did seemed to make it stop. After awhile, my muscle started quivering and twitching like it had just had enough. I didn’t know what to do..ibuprofen did jack all. Heat and gentle massage helped some, but not much. All I could think was “I am fucked up. My body is fucked up. But I will be getting answers to WHY soon.” and it helped a little.
I apologize if this is all just word vomit. I’m trying to sort out how I feel and I’m not sure if I should be “SHAME ON YOU, YOU BASTARDS!” or “Oh thank fuck you exist because you gave my husband his fucking life back.” It’s a little of both. I feel…I don’t know..I don’t know if there is a word to describe how I feel right now. If it had been one of his former employers, I wouldn’t be feeling this way. I had no loyalty to them, just as they had no loyalty to my hard-working husband who had more company loyalty than he should have because he felt it was his duty as good employee to be faithful and loyal to them. (Did that make ANY sense? Or did I just make one long ass run on sentence there?) To me, his working for his former employers was just a paycheck, since they cared almost nothing about him or his health (physical or mental). But IKEA (at least from what I’ve seen so far) actually gives a damn, which is surprising. Their corporate culture is so different from anything I’ve ever seen or been witness to in my entire life.
Or maybe that’s just what they want you (the employees and their families) to think, to see. But even the handful of other employees I’ve met (my husband’s coworkers) who’ve worked there for years seem…IDK. Downright HAPPY. It’s freaky. I’d met coworkers/underlings of my husband before and most of them (unless they were very new to retail in general) were jaded and had a pessimistic attitude. Like they couldn’t care one way or the other if their jobs actually got done and if they got fired, they wouldn’t give a shit.
But the people I’ve met who work with/for my husband at IKEA?
Completely different.
Maybe it’s because IKEA attracts and hires a different KIND of retail worker. Maybe it’s because they take care of their employees like family. Maybe it’s the health care and the cheap, delicious Swedish food. Maybe it’s the generous vacation time that’s not really restricted (as far as I can tell anyway) to just spring/summer. After a year of working for the company, you’re allowed (again, provided you haven’t used up all your paid vacation days) to take time off in November and December, which no other retailer he’s ever worked for would even allow. I mean, hell..with his previous two jobs, anything after October or before the end of January was blacked out. Maybe it’s because they allow him to basically set his own schedule and he only has to close like maybe once a month and only work 2-3 weekend days out of the month.
I don’t know. I’m word vomiting again, I’m sure.
I believe blame is on both sides here..nobody is 100% faultless for the MALM dresser tip-over tragedies that resulted in dead kids. But I can’t place as much blame as maybe I should (???) on IKEA, because that feels like biting the hand that has fed me filet mignon instead of leftover 3 day old ground beef (if that makes any sense whatsoever).