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

UPDATE: Temp Slave Sounded The Early Warnings

Ah, now there's an image that brings back memories...glad to see some of you going back to The Squawker's original post of 2/6/12 ("Temp Slave Sounded The Early Warnings").  For those who don't know, Temp Slave was the brainchild of Jeff Kelly, who called himself "Keffo." For Squawker and myself, reading this '90s-era 'zine's attacks against the temp industry -- which soon broadened to a critique of the work world itself -- provided hours of merriment, because so much of it rang true for our own experience.

I only communicated with him once, following a blistering exchange with Hate cartoonist Peter Bagge -- who wrote in to say that he'd picked up a copy and liked it, but found most of the tone overly negative (as if anybody in a permanently insecure lifestyle has anything to feel upbeat about, right?), and -- being a libertarian -- couldn't get all worked up about how the political system was treating people.

Keffo's response was suitably blistering and pointed ("You're a libertarian? I guess that means you smoke pot and exploit people"), which he signed off by saying: "You draw funny things, but you think funny thoughts." When I wrote to order a back issue, I thought only fair to get Keffo's take on the whole affair, which prompted him to expound thusly in his letter to me:

"Yeah, this whole thing with Bagge is stupid. Partly it's my fault. I assumed he was open to all kinds of material, but he isn't. I guess he's more oriented to pop culture kinds of things. But I just detest that cynical hip attitude he displayed. He talks of being proactive, but he draws cars with big tires, drunken twenty somethings etc...  I mean I like it for what it is but the only person he cares about is himself. I get shit like that all the time so it really doesn't bother me."

Keffo's response always stuck in my brain in the late '90s, when I moved to Chicago in hopes of trying carve out some kind of literary or musical niche there. My excitement quickly dissipated, however, after I picked up a copy of the Illinois Entertainer, and my eyes spied an ad for some local multi-band bill or other. Down the list I read: "Art Phag...Epstein's Mother...Walkin' The Dogma." Turning to the Squawker, I asked, "Wow, you mean these are actual bands?" I sighed.  "Man, oh man, is this place gonna suck...it's nothin' but a hotbed of irony."

As it turned out, Smashing Pumpkins' Big Dumb Rock Pose became the Windy City's defining alternative era export, but the lame attitudes that Keffo criticized continued to persist -- and I hated them, too. I had no time for that jaded-for-its-own-sake-I'm-so-cool-for-school bullshit that burped forth movies crammed with esoteric pop cultural references and loud video backgrounds...slick pop bands masquerading as "edgy" once they turned up the gain switch on their amp past five...and self-appointed Gen X lit "spokespeople" like Douglas Coupland, who went on and on about what "we" were thinking and feeling. Nobody asked me, though!

Anyway, I thought I'd see what happened to the man since Temp Slave faded into the ether of 'zinedom after its print comp, The Best Of Temp Slave, appeared in 1997. (And it's not hard to track down, either: last time I checked, Amazon had 31 used copies selling for a penny (!) apiece, while a few nearly new/"collectible" copies were fetching between $13 and $16). So I type in, "whatever happened to temp slave guy," and -- lo and behold, I find a March 2014 interview with Mark Maynard, done as part of a 'zine history project (see link below).

Now working full-time in the probiotic industry, of all things, it's good to see that the man is alive and well -- although, sadly, no longer moved to do any writing (even if he talks about finding other outlets like painting, photography and video, which is fine). However, Keffo's observations are spot-on as ever, and it's good to age that hasn't mellowed him on that score. This comment on young people, in particular, reminded me of our exchange from so long ago:

"After all, despite the best efforts of our generation, not much has been accomplished. Technology is their addiction, but, really, who, or what, do they have to turn to? The liberal left in this country stands for nothing. Their only goal is to elect a corporate Democrat, just so a Republican doesn’t win. Whether we like to hear it or not, Obama is nothing but a center right politico friendly to Wall Street. Republicans come up with insane conservative ideas and then the Dumbocrats come up with a lesser version."

That comment follows an observation from interviewer Mark Maynard, who notes that the satirical edge of programs like "The Daily Show" is often criticized for making rebellion less likely -- and that's before we get to the other relevant issue: what will people do with all that knowledge once they have it?

As Keffo suggests, if you look at the upheavals in places like Egypt, Greece or Ukraine, you'll get a better feel for what real political activity looks like, which often requires doing things that inconvenience us personally: "Remember, the powers that be, our exploiters, are working 24/7 to maintain their grip on power. We as a people can’t be weekend warriors about social change."  I couldn't have said it better myself.

Two decades after Temp Slave started blowing the horn about the inequality gaps that were rapidly heading into a chasm, we find insecurity is now a permanent feature of the American landscape -- whether you call it contracting, consulting, freelancing or temping, the long-term outcome is basically the same, as Keffo notes in this 2002 interview (which you can also read in full below): "The longer you temp, the longer you don't contribute to a retirement fund, or to health benefits."

Then again, the power structure's first loyalty isn't to provide everyone with a job...why else are they rolling out innovations like driverless cars and drones to drop off those bright, shiny packages that you order from Amazon (for less than the other guy, remember)? It's all because, as Keffo states, "business doesn't want an empowered workforce. They want you to kiss their asses and always be fearful about your job."  Keep those words writ large in your brain when you're deciding what type of action to take...whatever form it takes. --The Reckoner

Links And More Links (Here's Yer Lot, Then):
Mark Maynard.com:
The Untold History Of 'Zines...
Jeff "Keffo" Kelly On Temp Slave!
http://markmaynard.com/2014/03/the-untold-history-of-zines-jeff-keffo-kelly-on-tempslave/

Temp Slave: The Musical (A Brief Rundown):
http://www.madstage.com/oldshows/TempSlave.html

Weekly Universe: Disgruntled Temps:
True-Life Tales Of Woe!
http://www.weeklyuniverse.com/2002/tempslave.htm

Flat Wage USA: The More Things Change, They More They (Fill In The Blank)...

I've always held vivid memories of this image, which I remember seeing in Otto L. Bettmann's book, The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible!  While some critics accused Bettmann of going overboard with his debunking of the Gilded Age, published in 1974, the book's most cogent points focus on the glaring income inequalities that characterized the era. That's why this particular image and its caption ("Corporate greed octopus gobbles up freight for Great Railroad while unemployed handlers look on") remains so haunting, and so compelling, more than a century later.

I felt inspired to start this post after doing some research on Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome (1911), of all things. The title character's frustration with his limited resources is an important subtext of the story, which focuses on his failed attempts to start a new life with his lover, Mattie, outside the confines of his marriage.  In researching the story, I came across numerous references to The Working Girls Of Boston (1884), which marked a serious attempt by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor's to document female workers' conditions.

Suffice to say, the conditions these "working girls" endured were horrendous -- including arbitrary bosses, cramped work areas, lengthy schedules, little time off and poor ventilation -- so we need not belabor the point here. In 1880, the bureau reported that the average working girl in Boston earned $269.07 per year. However, once she finished subtracting $261.30 for necessities (food, clothing, shelter and medical care), she took home a whopping $7.77 in discretionary income...and you wonder why everyone frowns so heavily in those 19th century sepia-toned photographs!

While nobody's suggesting that we're back in the Gilded Age -- actually, most wiseguys like yours truly argue that we're at Roaring Twenties levels of inequality -- it's no stretch to suggest that Americans are faring poorly overall in the Discretionary Income & Savings Sweepstakes. One point that the Suze Ormans of the world overlook in all their endless lectures to the groundlings -- y'know, "waste not, want not, why buy that latte when you can put it away on a condo, yada-yada-yada" -- is that, after 30-plus years of flat wages, people have little or no money left to save.

One indicator of this trend is evident from a Bankrate.com survey cited in the following Huffington Post article (see link below, or click the actual survey link for the full gory details). The figure that leaps out is this one: about 25 percent of the adults surveyed by Bankrate between June 6-9, 2013, had no cash reserves for emergencies, while roughly half said they had three months or less of funds -- well shy of the six months that experts recommend. By contrast, 72 percent of those making $75,000 per year or more had at least three months' of emergency savings, compared to 35 percent making less than that sum.

Granted, it's a small survey pool, but those are stark figures, by any measurement. The frustration is fully evident from the comments of interviewees like Kim Norton, who told the Huffington Post: "I rob Peter to pay Paul; I don't spend my money frivolously on crap; I just make sure my kids have what they need. I get really wound up thinking about how you just can't get ahead." That does seem rather unlikely for someone working "part time as a research coordinator through a temp agency" (emphasis ours), as the story suggests -- need we say more?

In many ways, that little tidbit aptly sums up where we are now, along with the never-ending parade of dubious ads from crappy for-profit colleges, gold buying shops and structured settlement purchasing outfits like JG Wentworth...do these images speak to an economy in recovery? The jury's still out on that one, we suspect.

If you're like the great majority, you're probably writing enough checks to float a raft -- noting which companies run to the bank immediately, versus which ones wait a couple days, or even a week, God forbid -- while you pray for the roof not to cave in. Needless to say, though, don't expect any lift from the political classes, because they're having too much fun to care about helping the groundlings to any meaningful degree.

As we've stated here previously, the few measures that the Obama administration has proposed -- a year-long mortgage moratorium here, begging the House of Representatives to extend unemployment there -- have been too weak, timid or half-hearted to benefit people on a massive scale. And, in real terms, whatever Obama propounds now will essentially come too little and too late, since those guys in colonial drag (The Tea PartyRepublicans, basically) have no incentive to make those dreams happen. As the old joke goes, there's a reason why second-term presidents suddenly start talking up their foreign policy accomplishments.

What's often missed in these debates, however, is that these yawning disparities bear the hallmarks of policy. In Washington, access is power, and you can tell who wields it by who's actually sitting at the table. It isn't the inner city resident whose neighborhood lacks a decent supermarket...or the retired firefighter whose pension isn't fully funded...or the senior citizen having to choose between food, or medicine...or the contract worker piecing shit job upon shit job together for the privilege of surviving another day, never mind another week.

As one of my close friends observes, it's as if Ronald Reagan won a seventh presidential term, because the trends that began when he arrived on the scene in 1980 -- help the rich get richer, let the poor stay poorer, hollow out what's left of the middle class -- are more firmly entrenched and noxious than ever. The jabbering continues apace, while relief for the average person seems farther away on the horizon than ever, amid continuing choruses to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". However, as the customs man says at Heathrow Airport, "there's just one small matter": your bootstraps were cut long ago, when nobody was looking.  --The Reckoner

"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands." --Thurgood Marshall, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991)

"Consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry." -- Thomas Jefferson (A/K/A "The Guy On The Two Dollar Bill")

Links To Go (As Always...Read 'Em And Weep Some More, Eh):
Bankrate.com: June 2013 Financial Security Index Charts:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/financial-security-charts-0613.aspx

Consumer Reports:
Can Singing Vikings Solve Your Cash Crunch?
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2010/03/can-singing-vikings-solve-your-cash-crunch/index.htm

The Economic Policy Institute:
A Decade Of Flat Wages:
The Key Barrier To Shared Prosperity And A Rising Middle Class
http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/

The Huffington Post:
75 Percent Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings
To Cover Their Bills For Six Months: Survey:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/americans-savings_n_3478932.html