Monday, December 19, 2011

Part Time Invisible

Working as a part time employee is a perfect example of what is wrong with corporate America and an ominous sign of what is to come. It is the most undignified form of employment a human has to endure. 100% soul sucking.
Corporate executives dream of a staff of part timers more than they dream of sleeping with their neighbor's wife or stealing from the poor. It is their ultimate goal, the accomplishment they most covet.
Part timers are nothing. Limit their hours so you don't have to pay benefits or overtime, work them like dogs when business is smoking, cut their hours way back when things are slow. No need to concern yourself about their financial well being; they are tools in the tool box, nameless, faceless, not human.
When you work as a part timer your ego is battered and there is absolutely no dignity. You go in early when you are scheduled to go in late, you stay late when you are scheduled to leave early, you go in on your days off. Because you need the money. Not because you are trying to impress higher ups. There is no impressing higher ups. Not because you expect to be rewarded. You won't be. You don't exist.
Full timers and boss types don't have it much better. They work their asses off, endure more responibility and are required to kiss some ass, but there is no such thing as job security. If biz-i-ness slows down, everybody's head is on the chopping block EXCEPT those execs who have learned to smile as they kill. BUT full timers are guaranteed a consistent check as long as they are considered useful. The checks of part timers bounce around like Super Balls. Nobody can survive like this.
You go into this situation with your eyes wide open as a part timer. You know you are a bug, you know the organization doesn't give a damn about you except for their excitement about limiting your hours and avoiding payment of overtime and benefits.
Maybe a tiny piece of your brain thinks that if you work hard and learn the business, somehow, someway, down the road it will all pay off. But in reality you know that your only worth to the organization is that you are expendable. Like gum on the bottom of El Presidente's shoe.
The intangible in this equation is the fact that you are human. You begin to wonder what the hell you are doing. October-December are prime months in The Booze Emporium. Plenty of hours (NOT TO EXCEED 35 HOURS/WEEK) available to the tail wagging part timer. January comes around and BOOM you lose a minimum of ten hours/week. The world is hungover and nobody wants booze and the NHSLC is not interested in your financial well being. Your paycheck shrinks and so does your dignity. You get dizzy going from being in demand to being a drag on the payroll.
I cannot live this way. One of my major goals in 2012 is DIGNITY. That means I either endure the Spanish Inquisition-like interview process of the NHSLC and fight my way into a full time position, or I find an alternative. I have lost a couple of pounds. I'm thinking male dancer or gigolo. At least I have options.
It's sad that the economy plays right into the hands of execs. They know 113,475 people are in line for my job, so they don't care if I wake up one morning and decide that my life deserves dignity, that a lifetime of work and a responsible approach to this job qualify me to be treated with respect, to be looked upon as an asset to the organization with a lot to contribute. This is a throwaway society and I am a plastic water bottle.
This is the ultimate example of the complete breakdown of a mutual relationship between employer and employee. It used to be give and take; I believe I once read in a history book that there was even some respect there.
Many years ago the department that dealt with employees was called Personnel. Now it is called Human Resources. That tells you everything you need to know.

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