Cookie and the Works

The smear of right-to-work to one side, actually Mr. President I do have the "right to work for less money." Why should I be denied that?
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) December 10, 2012

Sir Charles Constant Wimbley Cooke, Bart., M.A. Oxon., F.R.A.S. (Fellow, Royal Arsehole Society), etc., etc., and a contributing writer at the National Review Online, has always disliked the idea of wages, which make one's work seem somehow so vulgar, and self-interested. If one must take money for doing something one ought to be doing purely out of a sense of moral responsibility, must one also "negotiate" the amount? They don't call your superior at work "superior" for nothing, you know, surely he knows better than you how much your work is worth, and as Scripture tells us the laborer is worthy of his hire.

As to the concept of a trade union, an organization entirely devoted to haggling like fishwives with its superiors over the worth of work, and not the work of real people but of a sort of arbitrarily "typical" employee whose demands are supposed to set a kind of standard for everybody else, he regards it with horror. Why not simply engage a pimp, if that's the way you feel, for heaven's sake?

I like to think Sir Charles once had a sort of "job" at, let's say, an especially chic art gallery back in the dear "old country", along with an old school chum, Beefy Waxe-Weatherford, who happened to fall in love with an American girl, and longed to propose to her.

"You'll do no such thing," said his governor, "or I'll cut you off without a penny."

"Of course I wouldn't need a penny if we joined the Euro," remarked Beefy, "but as things are, I think I shall have to ask for a raise." For his Tiffany was rather a high-maintenance operation, excessively fond of winter sports and summer hill stations.

"Don't do that!" Cooke urged him. "In the first place, you don't in point of fact do any work."

"That's true," said Beefy. "But think of the tone I lend to the place!"

"But think of how slimy you'll feel afterwards!" insisted Cooke.

"I know," said Beefy, "I'll call in a trade union to ask for me. You don't suppose they're very dear, do you?"

From Ebid (UK).

To be continued...?