www.weeklyuniverse.com/2002/tempslave.htm
Although Temp Slave folded after five years, topping with a circulation of only 3,000, Kelly achieved international fame as an expert on temping issues. He has over the years been interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, United States News and World Report, USA Today, Wired, CBS, and NPR . While the zine is no more, Kelly has reprinted the cream of this oral reporting from the temping trenches in Best Of Temp Slave. In an exclusive interview with the Weekly Universe, Kelly explains why the zine folded: One, my low budget printer went out of business. Three, I just tired of the daily hassles involved doing a growing publication. Unlike his self-published zine, the book is published by Garrett County Press . Sometimes I offer advice regarding potential books or distribution, but GK Darby is the sole owner of GP Press. Here now, torn from the pages of Best Of Temp Slave, are some exciting edited excerpts from the wacky world of temping: Mail and supply personnel are the plankton of corporate life. But most mailers are perfectly content with their jobs because of fringe benefits and the freedom it entails. Best of all, was the opportunity to use company mailing machines for free postage. Almost immediately my best instincts took over and I began ripping the place off. Over the course of my employment I produced 3 zines on company supplies and equipment and paid no mailing costs. Long term insurance workers are easily identifiable by the immense width of these behinds. The vast majority were simply going to sell their soul until retirement day. Then they could wear loud clothing and travel on bus tours with other huge assed people. The head of the company did all the correct humane things to squeeze money out of his employees for the United Way. This took the form of deductions from your paycheck, candy sales, hoagie sales, doughnut sales. The most humorous extortion was to charge people $1 to wear causal clothing on Fridays.
But I longed for all the untouched food brought down from the patients rooms. I often found myself talking to 10-year-old pieces of sht who could barely tie their shoelaces, but somehow had mastered the brainpower to dial our 800 number. I worked for the company that created Sonic the Hedgehog and Altered Beast . Adolescent boys would call just to harass us: I think Nintendo really kicked your ss with Donkey Kong Country . I felt like saying, Listen, you little punk, let me get you in a jail cell for two minutes and Ill beat you until blood comes out of your ears. But, I couldnt say that because our calls were randomly monitored. You were expected to be logged on for 7 hours and 15 minutes a day. This made it especially thrilling to run into the bathroom and furiously pump my erection, knowing my time was limited. Having beat off in a variety of work environments, Ive mastered the art of the quick jerk. I could usually have a satisfying fantasy and reach orgasm with 2 or 3 minutes. Which in some respects was better than my co-workers who frequently mumbled like lunatics. I take jobs at fundamentalist companies and totally destroy them from the inside out. The really bad thing about the job was that I couldnt steal anything of value or use their copying machines. She demanded that anytime I was cut, I was to wash, disinfect and wash again. She told the horror story of someone who had gotten blood poisoning from the dreaded paper cut. I will sit at a pregnant womans computer all day and do her work while she lies on her bed at home and waits to spit up her third child in as many years. I look at the books sitting on the bookshelf from my cubicle: The Wisdom of Teams , by Jon R. The Empowered Manager , by Peter Blacok, Leading Teams , by John H. On my lunch break, I purchase a copy of Karl Marxs Das Kapital and add it to the collection of fine reading material. It has been 11 years since I stayed at a job for more than 9 months straight - I like quitting too much to break any endurance records. Evidently, they had a disgruntled ex-employee situation last week, when said ex-employee decided to show up one afternoon and beat the holy shit out of someone. Aside from humorous anecdotes, Best Of Temp Slave also has zany cartoons and helpful hints!
Seeing a TV documentary on workplace violence, Kelly comments, edited for brevity: The killer worker said he had been a good worker and was fired from his carpentry job. He related that he felt a level of frustration and betrayal that boiled over. The bosss wife whined that just because they had fired him he had no reason to kill her husband. They never seem to focus on the conditions that make murder possible. They use us up and spit us out, and have the audacity to believe we will accept the sht they throw in our faces. Best Of Temp Slave was released in 1997, while America was riding the Dot-Com Boom which bypassed the hapless contributors to Temp Slave. Since then, America suffered the Dot-Com Bust, the Seattle riots, and 9/11. Kelly comments on the economy: As for Seattle, I was supportive of the peaceful and non-peaceful, especially the non-peaceful, things that happened. Just for the fact that some of the Left had the courage to try different tactics instead of holding a candle and singing We Shall Overcome. I dont even pay lip service to the authorities when they moaned about destruction, because what American business does on a daily basis is hundreds of times more destructive. For a small amount of time, the economy showed some strength and it became a workers market, where the worker had more choices about where to work. Once ol Bushie stole the election I knew that was going to reverse, because business doesnt want an empowered workforce. They want you to kiss their asses and always be fearful about your job. Now were back to the bad old days of the Daddy Bush administration. As for temps, well, temps are always going to be screwed no matter what. The longer you temp, the longer you dont contribute to a retirement fund, or to health benefits. Want more on Yuppie Scum, Cubicle Comedies, and Workplace Satires?
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