Crystals Don't Meet Quotas: Tyler's First Week As A Coal Worker In The People's Republic He Voted For
By Earl 'Red' Hutchins | Actual Life Under Communism
Tyler Mossgrove, 27, spent the better part of his adult life as a certified crystal healing practitioner, a life coach with a sliding-scale fee structure, and — most importantly — a passionate advocate for the dismantling of capitalist oppression via TikTok duets. He had 84,000 followers. He used the word 'praxis' correctly at least twice a week. He owned a tote bag that said 'SEIZE THE MEANS' in hand-stamped letters, which he purchased for $34 from an Etsy seller in Portland.
Then the revolution arrived. And with it, the Labor Assignment Bureau.
What follows are excerpts from Tyler's personal journal, obtained through the Bureau's mandatory transparency program, which requires all workers to submit their private writings for morale assessment. He was not informed of this policy in advance. The Bureau notes this is, in fact, fine.
Day One: 'There Must Be Some Sort Of Mix-Up'
0530 hours.
Tyler writes that he arrived at the Regional Labor Allocation Center carrying a canvas bag containing his rose quartz collection, a printed copy of his coaching credentials, and a handwritten letter proposing himself for the position of Community Wellness Facilitator on the newly formed Collective Harmony Subcommittee.
The woman behind the desk, Supervisor Brenda Kolachev, did not look up from her clipboard.
Photo: Supervisor Brenda Kolachev, via ea.md
"Mossgrove, Tyler. Coal processing, Facility Seven. Shift begins at six."
Tyler reports that he attempted to explain his qualifications. He had, he noted, completed a 200-hour online certification in trauma-informed life coaching. He had facilitated over forty virtual 'abundance mindset' workshops. He had, on three separate occasions, been described in comments sections as 'literally changing lives.'
Supervisor Kolachev handed him a hard hat.
"The collective thanks you for your enthusiasm," she said, in a tone that suggested the collective felt no such thing. "Locker twelve. Don't be late."
Tyler writes that he stood very still for a moment, waiting for someone to acknowledge the obvious administrative error. Nobody did. He found locker twelve. Inside was a pair of steel-capped boots, a high-visibility vest, and a pickaxe that he describes, with visible anguish, as 'aggressively masculine energy.'
Day Two: 'I Tried To Raise A Concern About The Emotional Safety Of This Space'
By his second morning, Tyler had identified what he believed to be the core problem: a fundamental absence of psychological safety in the facility's culture.
He raised this during the 0545 briefing, a seven-minute affair conducted by Shift Foreman Grischa Petrov, a man who appears to communicate exclusively in production targets and disappointed sighs.
Tyler asked whether the team might benefit from a brief grounding exercise before the shift began. Something somatic. Maybe just three minutes of breathwork to establish collective nervous system regulation.
Foreman Petrov stared at him for what Tyler's journal describes as 'a very long time.'
"Mossgrove," he said finally. "Sector C is behind by forty tonnes. Do you know what forty tonnes looks like?"
Tyler did not.
He does now.
His entry for the evening notes that his hands are bleeding 'in a way that feels symbolic' and that he has placed his rose quartz on the windowsill of the workers' dormitory, where it is 'holding space for his grief.' His dormitory roommate, a former hedge fund manager named Bryce who has been here for six weeks and no longer speaks, did not comment on the crystal. He stared at the ceiling. Tyler found this relatable.
Day Three: The Quota System And Its Discontents
Tyler devoted considerable journal space on day three to what he calls 'the quota issue.'
His position, thoughtfully articulated across four handwritten pages, is that mandatory production targets are a form of structural coercion that replicates the very capitalist productivity logic the revolution was supposed to dismantle. He uses the phrase 'internalized extractivism.' He draws a small diagram.
He submitted this analysis to Supervisor Kolachev in a folded note during the lunch break.
She read it. She nodded slowly, in the manner of someone who has seen things.
"Your quota for the afternoon," she told him, "has been increased by fifteen percent. For morale purposes."
Tyler's evening entry is mostly just the word 'why' repeated across half a page.
Day Four: 'I Posted About This And The Comments Are Not Supportive'
A brief but devastating entry.
Tyler had, against dormitory regulations, retained his phone. He recorded a short video from the bathroom at 2200 hours, explaining to his remaining followers that communism, as currently implemented at Facility Seven, was 'missing some key components around worker voice and holistic wellbeing.'
The video received 214 views. Eleven people unsubscribed.
One comment read: 'bro you literally told us this was the good system.'
Another said: 'wait are you actually in a mine.'
A third, from an account called @dialectical.dawg, offered: 'sounds like you just need to raise it with your union rep lol.'
There is no union rep. Foreman Petrov IS the union rep. Tyler learned this the following morning when he attempted to file a formal grievance and was handed a second pickaxe.
Day Five: Acceptance, Sort Of
The final entry of the week is, unexpectedly, the most philosophical.
Tyler writes that he watched an older worker, a woman named Vera who has been at Facility Seven for eleven years, complete her quota by midday and then spend the afternoon teaching a younger colleague how to sharpen a drill bit correctly. No fanfare. No content. No comment section.
He found this, he writes, 'oddly moving, in a way I'm still processing.'
He also notes that his hands have stopped bleeding quite so much, that the steel-capped boots are 'growing on him,' and that he has begun to suspect Foreman Petrov might actually respect him slightly, based on the fact that Petrov called him 'not completely useless' in front of the entire shift.
He is choosing to receive this as positive feedback.
His rose quartz, he reports, fell off the windowsill during the night and shattered on the dormitory floor.
He swept it up. He did not journal about what it meant. He was due on shift in four minutes.
The Bureau of Labor Assignment wishes to remind all citizens that crystal healing certifications are classified under Decree 14(b) as 'Non-Essential Vocational Credentials' and do not qualify for exemption from physical labor placement. Appeals may be submitted in writing. Appeals are reviewed quarterly. The next review is in March. It is currently April.
Comrade Tyler Mossgrove is currently in his third month at Facility Seven. His production numbers are, per Foreman Petrov, 'acceptable.' His TikTok account has 41,000 followers. He hasn't posted since week two. Some of them are starting to worry.