In his debut novel, "Post Office," Charles Bukowski wrote, "as the boys said, you had to work somewhere. So, they accepted what there was. This was the wisdom of the slave." While the word "slave" seems rather extreme, it's hard to deny this sentiment given my own experience as a restaurant employee and the son of a blue-collar worker.

Growing up, I witnessed first-hand the hardships my father encountered throughout his career as a restaurant cook and kitchen manager and went on to experience them through a restaurant job of my own. This working-class lifestyle has had a profound effect on my family and has transformed my father into a cynical, beaten down man himself.

Working a blue-collar job has never been desirable, so those who hold them are often unhappy. Due to the security of their position and lack of alternatives, however, employees are reluctant to give up their jobs. This promotes a comfort in hopelessness and acceptance of living within the working class.

The "wisdom of the slave" is enforced through this acceptance, as uneducated people are forced to stick to the options they have. The unfortunate truth is all of these options are jobs just as rigorous and unrewarding as the ones they wish to escape, so these less fortunate people have no choice but to conform to their working-class status. I failed to recognize this reality in my youth and always wished my dad was a happier man with a better job. I would ask him why he continued to work a job that made him so unhappy, to which he’d hang his head and reply, "you just have to play the game, kid."

While the reasoning for this mentality could be disputed, I found several parallels between my own experience as a member of the working class and Bukowski’s poor work experience in "Post Office."

Bukowski's debut novel recounts his life through the eyes of his literary alter ego, Henry Chinaski. "Post Office" documents Chinaski's career as a letter carrier and mail clerk, providing a detailed summary of his monotonous day at work, and his many relationships and habits when off the clock. His story consists of a tedious routine where his duties are hindered by paranoid customers, over-zealous bosses and his own hatred for the work. He begins the story a cynical alcoholic and ends it the exact same way, proving to have been disillusioned to a point of no return by his time at the post office. He has no drive, which is expressed most explicitly in the way he presents himself on the job.

As a reflection of Bukowski himself, Henry Chinaski is a heavy drinking, womanizing, gambling lowlife who actively lashes out at bystanders and coworkers. Though this is usually to the extent of arguing with angry homeowners, several incidents in the novel are far more extreme. On one particularly bad day, for example, Chinaski physically assaults a mentally unstable resident on his route for stealing her mail from his bag and refusing to sign for it.

While my father never assaulted anybody at work, he certainly shares this crass disposition with Bukowski while on the job. I work with my dad to this day and know to anticipate yelling, swearing, and arguments with other employees when he's present.

Their behavior doesn't necessarily correspond to productive working, but I find it hard to blame them for acting so fed up, as their working-class lifestyles have taken something valuable from both of them.

My dad obtained his current restaurant position through my stepmother, who first landed a job there as a waitress. She had just graduated from college with a nursing degree but decided to work for a year before pursuing a medical career. One year turned into six for reasons she would refuse to share with us, and she grew increasingly miserable. It was during these years that my parents grew distant, as their jobs would only permit them to see each other at the restaurant. She became jealous of my dad, who was promoted to the position of kitchen manager within a year, and increasingly hostile towards our family outside of work. Last year, as I should have expected, she ended her seven-year marriage with my dad. The two pointed fingers at one another, claiming the other was unfaithful or uninterested, but nobody thought to point a finger at the restaurant.

Chinaski's story is more severe, as it resulted in the ending of a life. For the first half of the story, he's married to a woman named Betty, who is just as heavy an alcoholic as he is. Similar to the issue with my parents, working at the post office only allows the two to be together at night, and Chinaski usually comes home to find Betty passed out from a long day of drinking. Like my parents, the two divorce, but Chinaski eventually reunites with a much older, much more addicted Betty later on. After briefly living together again, he comes home one night to find Betty lying in a pool of her own blood, and rushes her to the hospital. She dies that night from alcohol poisoning, and Chinaski is scolded by his supervisors at the post office for skipping work and attending her funeral.

The saddest part of these shattered relationships is both my dad and Chinaski remained chained to their jobs, though something dear to them was destroyed by the lifestyles their work produced. This truly is the wisdom of the slave, as they both knew of the damages caused by their jobs, but still conformed to them. It's this method of gritting one's teeth and subscribing to the working class that my dad refers to as "playing the game."

Where I would originally lower my own head and agree with these solemn words of wisdom, I now feel the integrity to claim that this "game" truly isn’t for me. Learning from actual experience through this lifestyle was enough to instill a desire to strive for something greater in Bukowski. In fact, the true significance "Post Office "has in his bibliography is that it ends with "in the morning it was morning and I was still alive. Maybe I’ll write a novel, I thought. And I did," which documented the realization that his realistic, cynical view was something of use to the world. It certainly was, as the late Bukowski is now an acclaimed author and poet.

The cover of "Post Office" even reflects this, asking the reader, "Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?" Implying that each individual has a more successful future waiting for them, and will find it if they avoid being stunted by poor lifestyles like that of the post office and any blue-collar jobs alike.