Rock’n’roll is all about rebellion. It’s non-conformity in music form. It’s all about the “Judas” cry to Bob Dylan and his response to “play fucking loud.”

He was sticking it to the man. When you plug your Telecaster into your Marshall amp, what better target than da man? The man is the bane of your existence, constantly oppressing your freedom.

My man is the boss.

Sure, the boss invariably gets a bad rap amongst the workers by virtue of his/her position, but it’s your duty as an employee.

The boss is out of touch. The boss is slack. The boss is a workaholic. The boss is too old. The boss is too young.

Let’s face it, the boss is not me and that’s why I hate him.

I have had my fair share of dropkick employers. One was a rampaging bully, who didn’t understand that without his hardworking employees his business would have been sunk. Another was a well-intentioned man but who was so removed from the realities of his company that anything he said was laughable.

My first boss was allegedly Mafioso.

There is something rebellious yet uniquely illogical about biting the hand that feeds you (and the hand that paid for your shiny new drum kit). It’s the spirit that flowed through from the earliest rockers through to today’s youngsters.

After a particularly hard week of work—and the requisite feelings of exhaustion, frustration, and underappreciation—I was reminded of my teenage years spent listening to The Living End. This Melbourne trio, with their fast rhythms, fist-in-the-air choruses and guitar pyrotechnics energized this impressionable teen back in the day. Sure, their simplicity often made their blatant Clash and Midnight Oil pretensions even more obvious, but there was a definite venom to their punkabilly style.

“Mr. Businessman,” a mere B-side during their debut album is a typical example. It hurtles along at breakneck speed—the solo tests the skills of the peerless guitarist Chris Cheney—that was their forte some eight years ago. Cheney sneers all over the song whilst now-departed drummer Trav Demsey plays with the barely-there chaos that was his charm and weakness. With the “You’re not gonna be a role model” coda, I can picture myself screaming at every miserly, insincere boss I’ve ever had the displeasure of working for.

So, tomorrow, will I quit my job? Hell no. I’d like to stick it to the man, but I also like to eat and pay rent.

But make no mistake, at work tomorrow I’m gonna play my music fuckin’ loud.

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