Funny thing about these temp jobs – once I’ve been in one for a few days I lose the ability to write about it. I really wanted to document the cold storage job before Xmas but never did, and now the same is happening with the mail room – wrote a bunch last night but it didn’t go anywhere. So I’ll try again.
I’m still there for the second week even though the person I was covering for is now back at work. This was really odd yesterday as there is now not enough work to do so I’m spending most of the day sitting around reading my book (Jonathan Lethem’s epic and quite wonderful Fortress of Solitude). When I get in there are envelopes to open for an hour or so and then nothing until about 3.00pm when the outgoing post arrives, and even then it’s stop-start. While it doesn’t bother me in the slightest (I get paid to read and I don’t even have to write a review!) it’s definitely very puzzling indeed. When it emerged that I’d be back again tomorrow I asked how long I’d be working there. Turns out it’s ’til the end of the week, the reason being the boss is doing appraisals in the afternoon and needs me to cover for him, except all I do is answer the door for deliveries every 20 minutes or so. And drink lots of tea. And read.
This is one of the weird things about industrial temping. You’re either working like a slave dog or you’re sitting around doing fuck all, and the pay is the same either way. The airport job last October had it’s fair share of fuck all (mainly me waiting for my boss to be free so he could show me what to do) and it was one of the reasons I left. I was commuting all that way to do pretty much nothing, or when I was doing something it was so obviously pointless as to drive me insane. But that also had the added disadvantage of being a long term, semi-permanent contract with little light at the end of the tunnel, whereas this mailroom job is just until the end of the week, so I can cope. Funny that I have to consider whether I can cope with getting paid to sit on my arse all day…
Thanks for all the comments on the debt stuff last week. Interesting that after seven days of opening envelopes for the debt collection department (just sorting them into piles – not actually dealing with them or anything) I’ve become more and more immune as it becomes just another routine in my day. Still got me thinking though.
It’s not so much the people getting into debt that worries me – debtors have been around as long as money after all – but that there’s this massive industry based around debt that seems to need people to get into financial difficulties in order to turn a profit. Once the debt collection machine kicks in all manner of departments and agencies come into play, from the bank itself to the debt counseling and citizens advice services, leading to solicitors, courts, bailiffs, etc. All of which employ armies of people who get paid to shunt bits of paper between each other to reclaim the few grand that some poor sod spent beyond their means. Is this pointless? It would seem that after all this money has been spent getting the money back there wouldn’t be any money left. But I suspect that’s not the point. The point seems to be to keep all these businesses going. In other words, if there was no debt, these people would be out of a job, so encouraging debt is a priority.
Paranoid Kafka thinking? Look at it this way. No-one likes to admit they’re in debt, so debtors go into denial until the problem is so bad they have to get professional help, because it’s a problem that needs to be sorted out, to normalise their affairs. This massive industry is based around something people don’t really like to talk about. Then at the other end every financial company is desperate to give their money away and enough people are desperate enough to take it. Yes, there’s a warning with every advert but there’s a warning on every pack of tobacco I buy and while the analogy isn’t perfect (unless you think our society is addicted to debt, which isn’t too far fetched) those warning have become so commonplace that they’re easily ignored. Yeah, I know my home is at risk and that my family will have to shoulder my debt in the event of my defaulting – that’s not news, and I really need a new sofa.
You’d think this would be considered a problem that needed to be sorted out for the good of society but it woud appear the financial health of the country relies upon it. Is it me, or is that a little fucked up?
I’d suspect it is important for these institutions to get their money back from these defaulting debtors, whatever the cost of doing so, in order to make sure everyone else who has a loan/mortgage pays up. If we didn’t think there was some huge industry (or even just a couple of huge heavies) waiting for us if we renege on our debt, then I am sure there would be a lot more people deciding not to pay their money off.
One of my friends is a debt collector. There’s a strong element of counselling involved.
That said, we don’t call him “Mark of Epic Proportions” for nothing.
I habitiually don’t get into debt, but often feel that I’m being an idiot for that. Much like being a cyclist who stops at red lights, I reckon it’s a bit of virtue I’m never going to be rewarded for.
The banks like you being in debt, it is how they make profits. The problem is when people stop servicing the debt, then they send in the heavies.
My point (which I’ll concede I’m probably not making clear!) is I’m not so much worried or surprised by the mechanics of debt, more that the industry that surrounds it is so huge. These lawyers, counsellors, etc would be out of a job if all debts were cleared and no-one ever defaulted, and I suspect that’d be a lot of jobs. Three stories of the building I’m working in for a start.
Yes, the argument for simplified taxation runs into similar problems because of all the potential unemployed accountants. Never mind that the rest of us could become a lot more efficient and therefore more productive!
I do sometimes wonder how it is that the modern western economies survive by being so service oriented. Truth is, as soon as China works out the significance of this (and she already has, I suspect) then western economies are doomed.
To coin a ancient cliché: “What did you do for the economy, Daddy?” “Well, son, I moved paper around and generally got in the way of people trying to make things work”.
Hello
I found you while searching for the phrase “addicted to debt”. I heard an economist use it at a big financial conference here in Hong Kong( I’m a video cameraman). He was talking from the viewpoint of China and said. “Just as the west addicted China to opium 150 years ago, we are getting the west addicted to debt! And I assure you the withdrawal symptoms of debt are far more painful than the withdrawal symptoms of Opium.” I thought you might like that.
He also went on to say that: “And in this, George Bush is our best friend, because through the human rights abuses of the last year he has made the Chinese leadership look like Cinderella, leaving Chinese people with no appetite whatsoever for democracy.
The guy’s name was Dr Marc Faber – known is Asia as Dr Doom!
Keep up the site wonderful “fly-on-the-wall” observations.
best regards
Pete Kline