Dear Internauts,
Well, I could either post the blog late or have been late for work.
Now that's no longer a problem, because I am once again—you guessed it—unemployed!
Such is the adventurous life of a temp.
While others tread paths into the dirt, forming stable paradigms of socio-economic legitimacy, we exist in a parallel realm of systemic flux.
Who are we?
What are we?
Where?
When?
Why?
AND HOW!?!!
When the hours of a shift can shift and a new skill is needed in a new place, we don the guise of competency and arrive like a fluid to a container or a set of mechanical parts all melted down then poured to fill up the outline of the default "employee" skin. We are numbers in a spreadsheet cell. We are the extra hands handed heavy crates marked by the busyness of the business—fill-in-the-blanks.
We are the capacity of expansion required by the seasonal sway in market projections under near ideal conditions given a margin of error + or - the fundamental realities of an ever-volatile capitalist conundrum.
We show up.
And when we show up and work the work, what do they say? Nothing or maybe something good, nice, affirming. Easy enough to allude to crude suggestion of a perfect world wherein they could hire us for longer. What a help we've been when they really needed it, but things are slowing now. After all, everything floats down. The oil and water are casually segregated. Maybe they'll see us when things heat up again. No promises, but they kinda hope we stay desperate and unattached enough to march back smiling and grateful.
We were needed once, but now we're not.
We were the only way, but now we're in the way.
Put us in our crates, and ship us back to the underground warehouse where we're cold-stored, kept fresh and primed for the picking.
Are we the Toy Story aliens in awe of the Claw?
Are we standing in the parking lot blowing on our hands, ready to do whatever needs doing?
Are we clutching our phones, twitching at phantom vibrations like frost-bitten amputees?
Are we what you need till it's not us it's you?
Are we flies that drop? (Good thing you got enough to compensate for expected losses.)
Are we "Yes, Sir" and "Yes, Ma'am" and loose parameters when there's no such thing as a job description 'cause you weren't sure exactly what you'd need that day?
Are we gonna stay up all night by your bedside or drop everything at a moment's notice or forgive any slight because the past is the past even though you hold the most minute infraction like murder 'round our necks?
Of course, we are.
Fair-weather? It's all fair game for us to face any storm in your wake. It's all the abuse we'll take so the pedestal won't break from under you.
Bad work for bad pay? But we'll come back anyway. Every time. Work-for-hire when you need a punching bag with a forgettable face.
We'll listen to your woes and sow seeds for fields you'll burn like bridges, and on our backs you'll hold the bootstraps we pulled up for you. Red, White, Black, and Blue.
Can you hear the practiced smile in our voice?
How may we be of service?
Thanks for reading,
Odist
No comments:
Post a Comment