Maybe I'm just an old man who complains and whines too much, but from my vantage point there are few things more demeaning to the human condition than being "a temp."
This is my first week on the job. Oh, it's a big, big company in a nice new building, with the latest computers and all. We type in HCFA forms (insurance forms) from scanned-in documents. It's drudge work made bearable only by the beat and rhythm coming through the headphones from my private CD collection.
First there's the caste system. Temps are not even second-class citizens. You're fodder. The "regular employees" generally ignore you. You are invisible.
Second, there is the invisible Slave Master - the master computer that watches your every keystroke - timing you, pushing you, always raising your quotas.
Third, there is the COMPULSORY overtime. Four hours of sleep between shifts - if you're lucky! I gop in at either 1 pm or 3 pm and work til 11:30, then it takes an hour to 1-1/2 hours to drive home along those winding country roads (worse in the winter). And then four hours later, it's back on the road for a required Saturday shift 6-noon. No lunch and often no breaks.
Forget a life. This IS your life. Welcome to the wall - and you're just another brick in the wall.
Often, you find you're cheated on your pay. You're doing the higher-scale work but at the lower pay rate, even among temps. But you'd better not DARE say anything or you'll find yourself on the George Bush bread lines.
NEVER question anything.
You know, you'd think accuracy would count in this work, but no, just type data in, you're fingers screaming until they swell. Someone else's job depends on your errors. Someone else down the assembly line will correct your data. Just type it in at blurring speeds, always faster, always faster.
Some of the younger folks here say it isn't all that bad. And maybe they're right. We live in a different world these days. The computers are in control, not us.
But to an old geezer like me - used to the creative world where I can create a web site from a blank screen, or a novel from a blank page - this is the Brave New World of the Future.
No time to smell the flowers or watch a sunset or listen to a child's laughter or a bird's song.
The Beast must be smiling right now - if computers can smile.
Posted by omegareport
at 9:35 AM CST
