Temp Slaves Unite

by Eve Lopez

I found out about a zine called Temp Slave! while surfing the Internet during one of my temp assignments last year. Immediately intrigued, I dug a little and found a whole culture of rebel temps that were in the same situation as me and writing about it.

While some people fall into the temp cycle, I jumped into it head first. After losing my first job out of college, I decided the trauma was too much to bear again, and until the economy stabilized, I would take only temporary jobs, ones in which my end date was known and not forced upon me without warning.

Becoming A Temp Worker

The day after I got laid off, I found myself in the lobby of a temp agency in downtown Seattle. The front page of the local newspaper announced the demise of several hundred jobs at the dot-com whose name I dare not utter. I'd liked my job and I'd liked the dot-com. Life sucked.

The pretty blonde lady from the temp agency understood my pain. At least, that's what I thought at the time. In retrospect, she might have been humoring me. She interviewed me as though I was interviewing for an actual job: She asked me questions about my experience, what my strengths and weaknesses were, and told me about the benefits the agency offered. Which, by the way, weren't much.

She said that although most of the jobs the agency offered people were of the clerical nature, she did sometimes get clients who needed creative-type people. She said she'd keep me in mind for editorial positions.

A few days later, she called with a job offer: Would I like to be a receptionist at a psychiatric clinic for a few days while the permanent employee was out sick? With a single word, my two-year stint as a temp worker began.

In that time, I held a dozen different jobs with companies all over the city. I was a receptionist, a data entry clerk, an image management technician, an administrative assistant, and a switchboard operator. I became an expert on what it means to be a temp slave.

In the Underbelly of Corporate America with Temp Slave!

Jeff Kelly, author of Temp Slave! and editor of a nifty book called Best of Temp Slave! is like a beam of light in the often dark lives of temp workers. While he advocates "fighting back" against The Man by working as slowly as possible ("This establishes a norm, allowing you to set the pace, not them") and stealing as many office supplies as you can get away with, he also provides valuable comic relief in what I consider the underbelly of corporate America.

Best of Temp Slave! features true-life temp stories by Kelly and a number of other temps going by pseudonyms like "Temp X" and "Dew U. Care." One short essay is accompanied by a picture of the writer wearing a badge around his neck with the words "TEMPORARY" on it. The company required all the temps and contractors to wear these badges for "security reasons," the writer explained, although the company didn't make the permanent employees wear badges at all. I could relate.

Although most temp agencies offer some benefits, they usually don't kick in for several months. Temps are not invited to office meetings or parties. They are usually referred to not by their first name (or last, for that matter), but as, simply, "The Temp." During my last temp job, I went through the company address book and found e-mail addresses like "Temp1" and "Temp2."

During one memorable assignment at an insurance company, my fellow workers were engaged in an informal discussion with our supervisor regarding our production rates. When one of them suggested to the supervisor that I be included in the discussion, the supervisor said, "Why? She doesn't care. She's just a temp." No one cared about production rates—the fact that I was a temp had nothing to do with it.

A Silver Lining

The Temp Slave! stories are pretty horrific and all the more poignant because they're true. But even in spite of the injustice I often felt as a temp—the feeling of being a second-class citizen and bottom-of-the-barrel worker—I have a lot of fond memories of being able to work at a lot of different places and meet people I wouldn't have otherwise. Many of those people were temp slaves like me.

Of course, the best thing about temp jobs is that they end.

You can pick up a copy of Best of Temp Slave! by Jeff Kelly from Garrett County Press.

Eve Lopez is a former temp slave who lives and writes in Seattle.