>James Baird wrote:
>
>>I just saw a movie, "Clockwatchers" this weekend, about the temp scene
-
>>not a great movie, but some funny bits. It's interesting how
differnet
>>sectors in the economy think different - I work as a "contractor" in
>>computer networking (I start at Schwab in downtown SF next week),
which
>>means basically that I get paid an hourly rate, no benefits, etc. The
>>funny thing is, the places I work, the "perms" are jelous of the
"temps"
>>- because we make at least twice what they do. I and my contractor
>>friends spend a great deal of time trying to avoid full-time work at
all
>>costs - much to the dismay of our employers, who would rather have us
>>"join the team", etc. I guess what goes around, comes around...
>
>Interesting. Lefitsh writers & agitators make a lot about how awful
temp
>work is, but the BLS surveys show about half of contingent workers
don't
>want noncontingent work, and then there's what James Baird says here.
Is
>the problem with temp work its tempness or the lack of benefits?
>
>Doug
>
It's the lack of benefits. The tempness can be great, but contradictory: it's really satisfying leaving a job that means nothing to me apart from income. Kind of a meta-job. Yeah, a meta-job. And I receive no small degree of pleasure turning down offers for full-time work. But this is mostly all a negative satisfaction.
It's living a kind of terminal transition phase. Which can be fine, I guess.
On tempness: it's a tough one. Temping really varies job to job. I just finished an assignment where I got along well enough with everyone and had lots of paid time to read and e-mail. The guy I worked for/with was actually a former temp, so we had some solidarity going as co-conspirators against management. It was all a play of appearances, of fabricating some pure appearance as called for, off of which "accountability" could glance: a kind of spectacle. The higher-ups have the upper hand here, though. Most of them, I've found, are fond of playing the accountability card against administration. Often for the pettiest reasons, and often as a transparent shield for their own incompetence. The power dynamic behind this play of appearance, this whole "accountability" ruse, is what individualist capitalist practice is all about, no? Perhaps "accountability" is a species of the capitalist power genus.
What a little essay I have going here!
But there's no security or benefits, and temping can inspire an I don't give a shit brand of way of life. Maybe libertarians would make good temps!
This has been my experience and, it seems, the experience of many other temps I've known the years I've been temping. However, temping in an office is different from industrial work. The stories in Temp Slave! tell a different story, far from happy freelancing. Also, a few Bafflers ago, I think it was, there was an essay on the outsourcing in Chicago, the company "Ready-Man (sic)" I think it was. Does anyone remember this?
-Alec
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