Jeffrey Levin <jlevin at pacbell.net>
-----Original Message----- From: alec ramsdell <a_ramsdell at hotmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Wednesday, September 23, 1998 6:52 PM Subject: reassurance?
>I fear my posts are tending to become a little all over the place, since
>I don't have time to read all the posts and engage with others (I have
>to get off my arse and set my computer up and get an internet provider).
>I did want to write a little about my current temp job.
>
>I am at law firm X for one of those grand industry-demanded conversions,
>from Word Perfect to Word, where much labor is exploited for totally
>non-productive ends. I'd like to say it's the technocrats and software
>fetishists, but it's such an entrenched thing. I'll just say it's Bill
>Gates' fault. It is so stupid that this happens. And frustrating, to
>put it mildly, for the workers. Days of retraining on software that's
>full of bugs, months of tedious conversion for no other reason than
>document re-compatability. Fuck Bill Gates. We should have stopped at
>the telephone, no, make that the telegraph.
>
>My new buddies in word processing are pissed off because of the
>following. As a paliative or "incentive" (fuck paliatives and
>incentives) they were given raises. However, they received lower raises
>than the core administrative staff. The reason? Money was needed to
>pay temps like me to come in and do a lot of make believe labor along
>with them. Only we can't even do the make believe labor yet because the
>Word software is so crappy it keeps bugging out. My co-workers in Word
>Processing recieved about a 2% raise when the norm is 5-7%, which is
>what the other administrative staff received.
>
>At this point their is a move among the word processors to confront
>management and demand an equal raise. All I can say is, I hope it
>happens for their sake. One of them told me it really fosters an
>individualistic, looking out for myself kind of attitude. It was the
>first time I saw even a hint of collective activity in this kind of
>firm. They can be a feisty crew, so it could happen. We'll see.
>
>-Alec
>
>
>
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