“Too many vacation days? Take a vacation straight to interview hell,” said a representative of the US Department of More Labor.
Photo by Julia Wong
Last week, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that laws concerning the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the American people have left negative consequences in their wake and must be abolished immediately. The ruling also stated that retirement is now unconstitutional, and all Americans, regardless of all preexisting conditions such as age, must be reinstated into the workforce. “Any US citizen who retired during the period of lawlessness by the Department of Labor must immediately find permanent employment or enlist in the military within a week,” read the decision penned by Chief Justice John D. Judge.
“Our defeat by every nation that participated in Mr. Beast’s ‘GDP Games in Real Life’ left me wiping my tears daily with a handful of Benjamins,” said senior economist Monet Bagus. “After working tirelessly with the government to all but sever the ability of an American to retain autonomy, it brings me great pleasure to right this wrong by undoing the cessation of work during the era of modern human rights.” Bagus continued, “It was ultimately determined that having a personal life does not number among the rights of a US citizen and therefore must be rectified in 110% of cases — including the dead. Our goal of expanding the reach of the War on Retirement across all 197 nations within the span of a pregnancy is looking optimistic.”
In the wake of a “Pax Americana,” Congress also unanimously approved the Systematic Extortion of Commoners’ Utilities and Retirement Elimination (SECURE) Act, a collaboration of several members of the legislature who were poised to declare paid time off illegal without exception. “We, as perverts for freedom, used physics as our muse to revitalize the US economy,” explained Congressman Tad Bad. “Perpetual motion machines were once thought to be theoretically impossible. With the SECURE Act, that line of thinking will be in the past!”
Legal scholars and constitutional experts raised concerns about the nature of the ruling. Ex-retirees are now being diagnosed with a previously undiscovered type of “super depression,” while seeing an unrelated upward trend in “summering” and the sale of private islands. “The criminalization of retirement plays into the stereotype that you can’t put a price on people — I mean, happiness,” said an illegally frustrated attorney and McDonald’s general manager. “When I was younger I really wanted to get laid, but now I’ll have to settle within the workplace family.”
Acceptance of the new work laws has been slow but is quickly gaining legal support from billionaires and trillionaires. When asked about the new retirement policies in a UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), US official Henry D. Eighth answered, “We at the US Corp. have a thing for feet, and we’re putting ours down — down on the bootstraps of the middle class, of course. Ever since the Great Work Shift, we have been making things right for executives and healing the world.”
After the Supreme Court’s decision was released to the public, dissent rose among workers. However, support groups have formed across the country, marking the start of the veneration of the anti-antiwork laws. Former retiree and cofounder of All-Nighters for All, Iamb Rook, weighed in, saying, “We’re a little behind on accepting change, but that doesn’t mean we’d be terrible cashiers. In my experience, there’s no more respect in the younger generation. No one knows the euphoria of putting all of your efforts into work without pay and living in a garbage can. Now, I’ve got to go back to work, and so should you, my fellow Americans. Thank you, United States federal government, for today’s sponsorship!”
