Day 1:

The Straws Begin To Pile

Being proven wrong always has a little sting to it. Like a little mosquito biting you, causing you to itch until you can forget about it. Everyone hates to be proven wrong, but some of the best lessons I have learned have come from being proven wrong. Any true pessimist knows what is really painful, is being proven right.
Like knowing the snippy bitty at your table isn’t going to tip, or that sinking feeling knowing the flashing blues is for your car, being proven wrong is only a nag compared to being proven right. And just like the waitress, the feeling of helplessness and powerlessness only fuels the anger when at the end you knew you were right.
Sitting to the side of the room, I got the first collective look of this group I had been a part of for almost two months. The most interesting factor had to be the large representation by the African American community. The room, a very inaccurate subsection of Americana, but interestingly enough seemed to be the last refuge of the over-achieving damned; A striving teacher, a worker from the Obama campaign, and countless college graduates.
In the room, me and about two dozen other temporary workers were all shuttled into a room for a meeting. The tone in the beginning held a drastic tune of the classics. The room was instructed how we needed to watch our promptness and our absenteeism. In two months, I have never seen anyone late, or miss work that was amongst this crowd, but it was spoken again. Of course, hearing the cry about absenteeism brings a taste of iron in my mouth knowing that we also are not given sick days.
The flaws also took an interesting turn. We are being instructed how we were working too long. People were coming in early and staying late. I thought about my father teaching me how a good worker shows up fifteen minutes early, and stay fifteen minutes late. The commitment shows you are faithful to the company, and shows your willing to work hard. I now see these ideals resulting in scolding. Such berating comments would have seen benign if it has not been for the next announcement. We would not be brought in for Memorial Day. This meant that the entire room was about to be lose a days pay, because holiday pay is only for those who work over 32 hours… and we all are kept at 30 hours a week.
Only a fool would think the group didn’t know the name of the game being played. Every carrot we knew was at 32 hours, health insurance, bonuses, holiday pay, days off, tuition reimbursement, all start once you hit 32 hours. Knowing the game, the room started their counter attacks to try and neutralize this ploy.
First came the sunshine approach. Individuals’ figured that others in the room haven’t put together what is being done, so by acknowledging it, they will be able to let sunshine act as the best disinfectant. Watching these people speak aloud, you can see in their faces the moment they realize those who are perpetrating this heinous act don’t care. All they did was state the facts not make a case.
The next argument to come forth is the same one I have heard from everyone on the outside looking in. “Employers would never do that to you, it isn’t fair or right.” An individual raises her hand, and makes the next plea, a plea for humanity.
“I think if they felt what it was like to be in our shoes, this would end quickly.” This empty idea had little more power then the idea of sunlight being the cure, but it doesn’t get to go without saying. Many in the room roll their eyes knowing that not only did our transgressors know that such an idea would never happen, but the reason for their positions came from playing such games.
With the actions being obvious, and humanity being purged, individuals in the room grew impatient and looked for some way to grasp for power. The one word, so delightful to say in dreams, but scares everyone in reality, came out. The word union came out. All breathing in the room stopped when the word stumbled into the conversation. The word spoken aloud becomes a dasher of hope. As if the last bullet in the gun was discharged into the air, leaving you unarmed for the future.
The management representative in the meeting was quick to disarm, having us understand that replacing all of us would be an inconvenience, but well worth the effort if such an action were to be taken. With that response, the sail of the room had been robbed of all of its wind. Everyone in their mind was thinking of what job they would rather have, but of course in our experience every job is like ours.
This meeting wouldn’t have been as bad if we didn’t all know that the managers above us were all getting raises and bonus’s and the majority of us had all received pay cuts or pay freezes. I myself was given an 8% pay cut before I had even started work. In my first month, I had reached 110% of the quota, and told that if I wanted to stay on I would need to strive to be better. Neither of those were big shocks to me, the biggest shock to me was in a meeting of employed people, the most important topic became unemployment.
We were all about to get random hours cut, and had to look to the government to subsidize our already below poverty level wages. The meeting also brought light to the practices that we would not be given a warning when our positions would be terminated, but everyone in the room knows that for the majority of us, that termination would come sometime soon.
Performing over quota, under budget, these words matter little to those that help accomplish that goal since the end result of hard work is our inevitable need for unemployment benefits to get us through after this job. Prudential calls us Temp to Hire, we call ourselves Temp to Fire.
Today I was at a meeting, and as they drained us of our humanity, I watched the room know the name of the game, and try to grasp back at their humanity ... grasps that only turned into gasps of whimpering powerless cries. Capitalism has turned cannibalistic, and as we the victims fall for these all too common practices, we are blamed as the predators chew on our flesh and reap what we sow.
There is so much more that can be said just about this meeting. The meeting became a platform of stability and a reminder that we were powerless. Veterans who have had this meeting told me how a few would be made an example of shortly, as if a sacrificial lamb to further establish the powerless fact in our minds.
Sacrifice: That is the one word I heard for the rest of the day. Managers speaking about all they have sacrificed for the company as if them working 60 hours a week was supposed to appease us, as we work part time, every one of us begging to be full time and put in 60 hours.
As we wear our clothes from goodwill, and feed our kids with foodstamps, those who pay their taxes so we can afford to work so cheap probably think we chose to be part time. Most of them who think when we get unemployment it’s because we don’t want to accept a lesser job. Most don’t understand that bitter taste in our mouth is that our employer, our tormentor, our propagator of poverty, fulfills this act by ensuring that our ankles be bound by limitations on the work we are allowed to do.
It’s not like we don’t know these things are going to happen. With every benefit cut, every promise broken, every abuse sent down, all we can think is how we knew this was coming and how we wish we didn’t have to put up with it. In the last two years, I have worked for 6 companies that give health insurance, tuition reimbursement, and the likes, and 6 times I worked full time until my benefits would kick in, and then dragged down to part time. Each time, I know I can’t act like I know it is going to happen. I have to act like this job will be different. Outsiders say my assumption that it will happen is why it does happen, but those outsiders have never sat in a room like this, with hard working people who watched their humanity being stripped to ensure that Momorial day didn’t need to be paid for.
The irony of the words I speak today, is my knowing the lack of power that sunlight holds, yet with these words I hope to at least shine some sunlight on to the lack of humanity the bottom feels. I don’t expect that someone will hire the people in that room with a new rejuvenated feeling of empathy and humanity, because those of us who will work below the poverty line, constantly beaten with the stick will continue to do so. Beyond the stick that our company dishes out is the stick of public opinion of those who can’t handle the game. I guess every league needs it’s Detroit Lions, it’s New York Islanders, it’s Chicago Cubs, it’s workers who everyone know will lose, but we love to blame them for losing.