Hardware Store Horrors: My Contribution To Temp Slave

<Temp Slave, Issue Six>

Reckoner's Note #1: "Back in the day" is an oft-abused expression, but an apt one for many occasions...especially when people evoke some bygone era that agrees with them better (as in, "Back in the day, you could smoke pot in our dorm lounge, and nobody blinked," or, "Back in the day, you could piss on the parking garage roof, but you wouldn't get busted"). 

As a unit of time, though, I'm going to assign 20 or more years to "back in the day." Simply because, when you hear the parties involved tossing it around, it's pretty obvious they don't mean last week, let alone last year.

Back in my day (the mid-'90s), you couldn't miss TEMP SLAVE, when 'zines were all the rage, scoring major media attention, even book deals on Madison Avenue. TEMP SLAVE started as an irreverent blast against the industry, in particular, but broadened its outlook to the work world, in general, and the sclerotic political system that allowed all its abuses, big and small, to flourish.

Though it's long gone, TEMP SLAVE isn't some quaint artifact. The themes it broached -- from America's mushrooming inequality, to the decline of regular work, and the abuses of fulltimer and temp alike -- seem more relevant than ever. So do the "permalance" hustles that keep workers forever on the company hook, without benefits or time off, let alone any say over their so-called careers and futures. Nobody can say that TEMP SLAVE''s creator, Jeff Kelly (Keffo), didn't try to warn us.

While digging through my papers, I came across my own long-forgotten contribution to TEMP SLAVE. I submitted it in the winter of '96, I think, after briefly becoming enmeshed in temping, while trying to survive in the unforgiving Windy City. My article did run in TEMP SLAVE, but I don't recall what issue, because I don't have it..

Here it is now, 23-odd years later, in all its ragged glory (with minor edits and notes, where applicable). As usual, the names have been changed to shield the innocent, and protect against retribution from the guilty.

<HOMESPUN HARDWARE'S THE PLACE (UNLESS YOU TEMP THERE)>

We've heard their jingles umpteen times: "Homespun Hardware's the place..." Doesn't that put a golfball-sized lump in your throat -- knowing some all-powerful father figure's scurrying to find you the right light bulb?

But you better look something like the Homespun Hardware Man, or else he won't let you temp there, as I learned from my one-day experience there in Wheeling, IL, thanks to Fly By Nite Talent Pool. 

When Fly By Nite called, during record wind chills of minus 70 below in January, I wasn't elated about a retail assignment. I'd just finished three pleasant weeks at a microfilm place, meaning all the free copies, office supplies and phone time that a freelance writer could want.

Thrilled or not, though, I took the gig, since Fly By Nite claimed it would run two weeks. To worsen matters, my North Side cubbyhole's just 35 miles from swinging Wheeling. When you're making $8 an hour, and gas $1.40 per gallon (minimum), you're hardly coming out ahead, especially if you're driving a 1983 Buick gas guzzler!

The job itself, which begins at 8:00 a.m., is pretty routine. Fly By Nite bills it as "general office." In reality, this gig only involves rearranging shelves to make room for new products, so I spend most of my time figuring out how to display chainsaws. It hardly matters where, because the manager vetoes most of my arrangements, anyhow, forcing me to get his "official" word before doing anything.

And woe to those poor customers asking, "Where do I find such-and-such a screwdriver?" I simply point to my supervisor. "Why don't you ask Trevor? He knows more than I do." As the morning drones on, I tire of this May-I-Help-You-Speak, and hide behind the nearest available shelf whenever customers approach.

I get some comic relief over break from reading the industry's views about theft in American Hardware. After questioning various Homespun outlets in Arizona, and Virginia, its lead article concludes the greatest danger to corporate profits isn't coming from customers (wow, really?), but (duh) employees, leading to some All-American notions about how to preclude such illicit redistribution of wealth.

For example, the article suggests, slip an extra $10 bill into somebody's register, to test their observancy (and honesty) at the same time. Also, keep big ticket items out of sight, so your employees can't "lose" them after closing time.

As a result, most retailers are using civil prosecutions against employees with aggravated sticky fingers. Unlike criminal cases, they only require 51 percent proof of guilt, and allow judges to levy restitution fees of four to five times the item's original value, plus the usual court costs. What a great way to grease the legal wheels!

I hear even better stuff from Trevor over lunch next door. After four years at Homespun Hardware, Trevor now makes $8 an hour, same as me. Not only that, he spends two hours a day driving to this sorry job from Oswego, in northern Illinois, which means he must rise and shine by 4:45 a.m. Nothing like enforced dedication, right?

As it happens, I don't see Trevor all afternoon, spending my last three hours at the mercy of his sidekick, Donnie, who fits every joke imaginable about sexually frustrated hardware men. 

Not that I care for his idea of humor, which involves yelling "Airmail!", followed by a 40-pound lawn bag hefted into my gut. I get even by ignoring his braying commands to "load those pallets!" by sitting on them, the minute he disappears, to bitch about his domestic life for the umpteenth time.

I've hardly crawled home again at 5:30 p.m., when Fly By Nite calls. The rep's hardly asked how everything went, when she adds: "By the way, I've talked to the owner, and he's uncomfortable with your hair. He said, 'This is a community where people drive their Lexuses.' I don't think you'll be able to go back there."

Huh? I may be blond, and look something like Kurt Cobain from a distance, but am I that grungy-looking? Instead, I say, "Is this guy a charter member of the Christian Coalition, or what?" Especially I only met the owner, Chip, for about 30 seconds today. Does he have a wife named Dale, too?

"No. Maybe a little conservative, but I think he's just concerned."

"What about my time card?"

"Don't worry, Trevor will approve it."

POSTSCRIPT: FRIDAY

I've stopped off at Fly By Nite. While waiting for my one-day check, I overhear another molelike rep telling somebody: "Oh, sure, this job involves some light lifting -- but you can do it," A pause. "Where? It's up in Wheeling, so you'll need a car to get there."

I can't be sure, but it sounds like they're asking a woman to take those 40-pound bags. Maybe she'll have better luck with Chip than I did.

My total check came to $56 (seven hours). Uncle Sam took the remaining $5, meaning I worked one hour for free, basically. Assholes.

My 1983 Buick Rivera gave up the ghost about three months later, in April. It hasn't run since.

After spending one more day with Fly By Nite (January), and three weeks with Kelly (March), I've gone back into freelance music writing. I'm no longer temping for anyone.

POSTSCRIPT: NEW YEAR'S EVE 2019
Reckoner's Note #2: I'd forgotten one thing, after re-reading the above TEMP SLAVE piece -- but it popped back into my head, the minute I read it.

Right after Trevor and I got back from lunch, an older, heavyset gent with thick horn-rimmed glasses breezed through the entrance, stopped briefly to chat with a cashier or two, poked a glance around the aisle. He swiveled around, took a glance at me, and literally did a double take. As in, walked a couple quick steps back, but thought better of it. Then he scurried off.

"Who the hell was that?" I asked.

"Ah, that was Chip," Trevor said. "He owns this place. Don't worry about it."

We then parted ways, Trevor, to presumably mess with more shelving arrangements, and me, to the back room, where those 40-pound bags awaited my gut. 

This moment, I'm sure, triggered the situation that I confronted when I got home. Trevor seemingly shrugged it off as "no big deal," but I suspect he knew -- right then -- that I was toast, heading for a one-way ticket off the island. Not that he had any say in the matter (of course).

Even so, I'll never forget Chip's glance, brief as it was, one that conveyed a look of pure visceral disgust. Presumably, I fit the bill of all those left-leaning, drug-addled, US of A-hating misfits he'd heard so much about in the mainstream media.

Why didn't I mention that uneasy bit of eye contact? Who knows? In my own way, I guess I gave Chip a break, not that he'd return the favor. I wouldn't make that mistake again. At least -- not so soon! --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before You're Dragged Through The Temp Net):

Mark Maynard.com:
Jeff "Keffo" Kelly On Temp Slave:
http://markmaynard.com/2014/03/the-untold-history-of-zines-jeff-keffo-kelly-on-tempslave/

Print Fetish Collection: Temp Slave:
http://printfetish.com/2008/03/post.html