Tempocalypse
Every job that I have gained has been a grand undertaking, global financial crisis or not. I am lucky to currently have two casual jobs. Finding jobs has been a nightmare. With so many months spent writing job applications, I have gained so few replies. After a dozen interviews in six months with no acceptance, the exercise becomes fruitless. The endless rejection kills confidence and self-esteem, two of the most important attributes in a job interview.
Feeling like a jobless loser, I spoke to a woman who had similar problems with interviews. I inadvertently created a cloud of anxiety by pointing out that if a company accepts me for an interview it is because my resume is perfect for that particular job, then if I am rejected after the interview it is because the interviewer doesn’t like me personally. This anxiety of ‘feeling personally rejected’ spread through her social circle. Feedback from my interviews are usually cop-outs such as ‘not enough experience’ or ‘we found someone with more experience’. My resume is filled with experience and university degrees, my problem is shyness and lack of confidence in interviews. I am not a good actor, I can’t easily give them the extroverted person that they are looking for. I have decided to solve this by doing acting classes. This may seem a way of cheating the system, but presenting a happy friendly face (when the inner truth may be anything but), is all good customer service.
Where do these confidence-lacking people go? There is one type of position which seems very easy to get into—by working as a temp. My first temp job was a call-centre position doing data entry for a major telecommunications company (yes, that one). Temps are the disposable people of the job world, they work on full-time hours for casual pay. Temps can be fired at any moment without notice.
This is how happy call-centre staff are 24/7
Temp staff are not actually hired by the company they work in, but are employed by the recruitment company. It saves the company money, they can get full-time staff on minimum wages, by outsourcing the employment process to the recruiters. The recruitment company acts as a middleman and they are paid a lump sum for their temp staff, then the recruitment company pay the temps, which is usually minimum wage. The recruitment company pockets a percentage of the temps income as their profit. This means temps have two bosses—it can be very annoying hearing the same thing twice, or hearing it once from the company boss as a trivial matter, then hearing it again from the recruiter as a world ending problem.
The call-centre that I worked in had about 70 per cent temp staff. Working as a temp, I was constantly on-guard, analysing my own behaviour, trying to do the best job possible at all times, shit-scared that I may loose my job at any moment. I was made to learn occupational health and safety standards about stretching my legs every half an hour, but then told-off for getting out of my seat too many times during the day to go to the toilet. I felt trapped at my desk in front of a computer, unable to do any but work. If I were to finish one days work, then I would do any possible future work, there was no such thing as no work to do.
One major problem for temps is that they don’t receive any sick-pay. If they are sick they can either take the day off (and must obtain a medical certificate) or come to work and try to get through the day. Most decide to come to work, because they are being paid so little and can not justify losing any of their income just because they are a little sick. And why be miserable at home, when you can be miserable at work and get paid for it?
After a few days half the call-centre building is empty, because temps who have come to work while sick have spread their colds and flus to everyone else. Those permanent workers employed by the phone company on collective bargaining agreements actually go home when they are sick and other temps become so sick they can’t come to work anymore. The rest of the people are left to pick up the pieces and do two or three times their workload. This leads to a lull in business productivity, or an eventual collapse, or at least a very angry workplace.
Add swine flu to the equation and would be quite disastrous. My uncle, who works as a public servant, contracted swine flu from his workplace, along with many others. The man who spread the illness had travelled to work on public transport for several days and continued to work while experiencing flu symptoms. My uncle started to experience the same symptoms and decided to have the swine flu test. The test costs about $80, so many people aren’t willing to fork out that much. After my uncle found out he had swine flu, he was able to inform the rest of the office and many others tested positive. The workplace emptied out, but this was a government office where workers were paid full wages, I can only image catastrophe among the temp workers of Australia’s call centres.
