US Taxes for American Workers in Canada: What to Know

 OMG, like in "Factory Time," Tom Wayman and Chandin's dad are totally obsessed with every little detail and the whole vibe of their work time. It's cray cray! Here, tho, religion is also lowkey at stake in the financial predicament. OMG, like this reverend from the "Shivering Northern Wetlands" in England totally adopts Chandin into his seminary. And guess what? Word spreads like wildfire that Chandin's parents have legit converted to Christianity just so the adoption can happen. Crazy, right? Like, this one person in the village is all like, "If it's the only way for your child to get education and not have to work like a horse, sweating and breaking back in the hot sun for hardly anything, wouldn't you convert?" (28).

 Converting to Christianity is, like, a way for peeps of Indian descent to lowkey ditch their racialization and the whole struggle with money and time

 

It's a pretty tempting choice for Chandin's parents, and it turns religion into, like, a practical move. But like, Chandin's dad's obsession with time lowkey opens the door to, like, escaping temporal poverty, but it's still kinda partial and problematic, ya know?appear lowkey basic, but the savage satire of the poem itself is like woke AF and a way to flex against the whole industrialized time thing. Despite the onset of a postindustrial era, Wayman's agonizing portrayal of the endless grind necessary for eking out a living has only increased in feels over the decades since it was written, as wealth is increasingly flexed by the few. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) spills the tea that in 2009, during a major recession, the top-paid CEOs in the country were flexing with over 330 times the annual income of the basic minimum wage worker, which is like, a major glow up from the 90s (Mackenzie 3, 4). A person making minimum wage would have to grind for 330 years to earn what a top CEO makes in just twelve months, without even factoring in the stock option tax perks that boost the fat stacks for the rich. OMG, like Hugh Mackenzie from the CCPA is totally spilling the tea. He's like, "Canada's top 100 CEOs make as much as a whole year of minimum wage work by 3:15 p.m. on New Years Day" (3). 

For shift workers, the whole grind and like, super rigid timing of work "days" can seriously mess up basic social and fam schedules, and can result in a constant lack of zzz's.

OMG, sleep deprivation is like a total "national epidemic" according to Ian Brown from Globe and Mail. He's like so sad about the "growing popularity" of night shifts, early starts, and extended hours, all just to save some coin. SMH. The phenomenon doesn't even escape Wayman, who, in his poem "Overtime," hops in his whip after a long shift and realizes that "There are 12 hours / until I gotta bounce outta bed for more" (20). Brown notes that sleep loss has been linked to "hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, memory loss, bipolar disorder, reduced immunity, mood swings, impaired carb metabolism and increased heart- rate variability," as well as impairment of "the ability to make moral judgments."

Like, time being all whack can totally mess with wage workers, but even the middle classes aren't immune, ya know? Gurvitch be like, the middle classes, they don't even produce their own time scales cuz they ain't woke about their class groups, ya know? They're like, totally thrown around in different social scenes and can't even find, like, any sort of connection" (100). In Gen Z, Coupland's character Andy is like, lowkey saying that being middle class means you don't really stand out, ya know? And yet, like, bruh, contrary to Gurvitch, Andy totally feels that this negation adds to, like, a super specific middle class vibe and time frame:

OMG, like obvi, this passage is lowkey saying that lit is how history remembers the vibes and stress that authors feel from all types of peeps, whether they're basic or not.

Class divisions be hella overlapping with other social divisions, and the connection between class and race be mad prominent. M.G. Vassanji’s novel No New Land is all about Nurdin Lalani, this Indian dude whose fam moves to east Africa. But then Nurdin bounces to Canada and he's like, "Whoa, look at all these sick opportunities!" His age of 46 years is like, "about the average life expectancy where he was born, ya know? but here in Canada you got an extra AF lease on life” (85). And yet, cuz Nurdin's potential employers in Canada are hella hesitant to hire him – his race, obvi, being the unspoken reason – the "extended lease on life" turns out to mean that Nurdin has more time to spend in basic, unsatisfying gigs. OMG, like Nurdin is stuck doing hella boring work just to survive. But he figures out that if he gives his first week's cash to his boss at his subway cleaning gig, he can chill and play cards with his coworkers during most of his shift. It's not much, but at least he's winning in the moment. (88)  OMG, Shani Mootoo's book Cereus Blooms at Night, set on this made-up island that's probs inspired by Trinidad, totally captures how being far from the colonial center and dealing with race can create major class divides. It's all about that time and space, ya know? Chandin's dad, a total simp from India, is all about the connection between time and that cash flow: