The Misery Factory gets a bad wrap, especially among Millennials and Gen Z, but I’m not sure it’s warranted. It starts with a misunderstanding of what we do. Our slogan, “Ambition Without Vision,” begins to explain the type of work we’re tackling day after day. The core of our mission can be summed up by our passion associated with the three D’s: Dehousing the elderly, Defunding the arts, and Denouncing the orphans (lazy freeloaders).
Without our hard work, the National Endowment for the Arts could balloon to obscene numbers—even up to a ten thousandth of the Pentagon’s budget. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worried about how much free music education children could be receiving if I don’t do my due diligence. Luckily, I am very good at my job.
I’m criticized not just for the work I do but also for my background. I clawed my way up from an upper-middle-class neighborhood to attend the prestigious University for the Already Ahead. (A prestigious institution founded in 1609 by men who arrived in America exhausted from their most recent trip on the transatlantic slave trade.) With the ability to focus solely on classwork and extracurricular activities, while avoiding foolish distractions like part-time jobs and the FAFSA, I was able to graduate near the top of my class.
U of AA has a strong alumni network that includes top CEOs in several Misfortune 500 companies. It was with these strong ties that I was able to land my dream job at the Misery Factory. And just because I came from a top-five university doesn’t mean I didn’t have to work my way up to mid-level executive in charge of murdering puppies and dismantling immigrant communities. I started at the bottom rung, spreading misinformation online about the dangers of universal health care.
While other people my age were breezing through life in medical school or spending their own paycheck buying supplies for their classrooms, I was in the trenches working for political candidates deemed too unsavory for even Steve Bannon. Though some might call them “divisive,” “authoritarian,” or “Ku Klux Klan affiliated,” I learned a lot about the noble pursuit of power for power’s sake.
And before you try to use it against me: Yes, I am well compensated for my work. Why shouldn’t I be? The value I contribute to the Misery Factory’s board of shadow investors and rogue billionaires is quantifiable. I recently saved a multinational company thousands of dollars by consulting with them to remove toilet paper and doors from their restrooms. Now that their employees lack sanitary products and privacy, they’re spending less time defecating and more time grinding on company time. And while health insurance payments made to cover bowel obstructions have increased 300 percent, the cost/benefit equation still vastly favors the employers.
It’s just capitalism. Complain all you want, but do it quickly, because bills are being sponsored that will criminalize that sort of unpatriotic bitchery.
The problem with this generation is that it seems to take perverse pleasure in trying to take down a strong woman who’s just trying to take down other women she perceives as stronger than her. Everything I do in my never-ending quest for unbridled wealth and limitless power is perfectly legal—if not in this democracy, then in the countless ones I’ve helped overthrow.
So, criticize me all you want, but I’m a proud company woman. And I believe that this company has just as much of a right to exist as any human being (even more so, if we can finally get that bill that grants double voting rights to corporations).