I'm not talking about executives. I'm talking about rank-and-file office workers who have nobody reporting to them. Now, while there are probably some individual office workers treated worse than individual warehouse employees, the contrast is stark. Like, I work at the office of a factory. I don't have anybody under me, but the difference between how I'm treated and how they're treated is so stark. Hell, they're even union guys and I'm not.
Is there some obscure theory thing explaining this?
Honestly I think in a lot of ways we aren't. Being salaried just means management can make us work ungodly hours with no extra pay because "overtime is factored into your salary already." Jobs are intentionally understaffed to save money, why hire three people to work 40 hour weeks when you could make two work 60 for no extra cost. I traded destroying my body with destroying my mind. I can't fucking believe it but sometimes I actually miss the feeling of clocking out, body aching, knowing that the next few hours of my day were mine even if I was too tired to do anything with them. Now I'm stuck in constant anxiety, there's no clocking out and I'm expected to respond to emails quickly regardless of day or time. Nothing I do is worthy of this stress but they loom these impossible goals over our head to ensure we are always underperforming according to their metrics and able to fired at any time, based on poor performance. The stress is so engrained into the system our office has a "meditation room" where employees can go to cry in private.
The worst part is everyone thinks they'll be the one employee out of hundreds that lasts long enough to make some real money. I've got no allies here--I can't have a serious conversation about these working conditions because according to everyone else we're not being exploited, we're just "paying our dues." When I started this job I thought I had made a real step forward in life, now I see I just traded in for a different kind of bullshit.