Temp Troops of High-Tech

A submitter sends in this story about temp work in Silicon Valley, from the point of view of the temp. Compare almost the same story written from the point of view of Amazon.com's management.

Comments

high tech also means low tech

[Reinout]

There is mention in the beginning of the article about it being strange to have so much non-hightech work in such a hightech-area. That's not so strange if you think about it. The whole ecommerce thing is about selling stuff. The stuff that gets sold normally can't be send over the internet, so you need FedEx, the postal service, etc. What they're missing out on letters that get send, they're gaining in packages...

And the high-tech (?) printers and so also in the end need packaging, sending, assembling. You can automate some parts, but...

When you read a story like this, it just keeps reminding me of early 20th century conditions that made socialists movements all too understandable... Some people just don't seem to care. Or not to be allowed to care by some system...

Reinout

The world economy.

[Sobrique]

The world economy has always been built upon the backs of a 'disposable' workforce.
Let's face it, paying minimum wage to people is cheaper than automating a production line (and of course, they can argue that they are providing valuable jobs).
It's heavy handed and unethical (IHMO) but companies (with a _few_ limited exceptions) are only interested in the bottom line.
I've done the temping thing for a while, and there was certainly variety (like I'd be in a different job every week), but you are also treated as little more than 'an extra body'. They can get another one easily enough, so they can get you to work, trample on you, and if you go replace you in a day.
(Much happier now I'm working full time doing 'skilled' rather than manual labour. Least this way I get a month's notice before being told to walk)

Re:The world economy.

[mip]

Capitalist economies require a pool of unemployed workers to allow for continued growth. Full employment is bad news for such a system. Read this page for further details.

On unemployment it says that it is a necessary condition for a capitalist system, as long as it doesn't get too high - it is upto the individual to find employment and change their status. Capitalism is economic individualism.

Should society look after the people or should the people look after themselves? I think, as in all things, balance is required.

Re:The world economy.

[sql*kitten]

Let's face it, paying minimum wage to people is cheaper than automating a production line (and of course, they can argue that they are providing valuable jobs).

There are plenty of people who believe capitalism can do no right, to wit:

• They're automating the factories, driving workers out of their jobs!
  
• They're employing workers to do menial repetitive tasks better left to machines!
  

The fact is, even in the developed world, there are lots of jobs that don't require anything more than repetition. Another fact is, the most you can earn is the economic value you produce, minus the cost of doing business. Third, the seller sets the price no more or no less than the buyer - for a transaction to take place, there must be mutual agreement.

I've done the temping thing for a while, and there was certainly variety (like I'd be in a different job every week), but you are also treated as little more than 'an extra body'

Well, that's what you are, an extra pair of hands to do the work. You show up, you do the job, you get paid, you go home. A lot of work is necessary, but very simple, and varies in demand - look at the Amazon story about seasonal rush. The alternative is to have very slow service during peak times, and/or high prices during the slow season, to support an idle workforce.

It's heavy handed and unethical (IHMO) but companies (with a _few_ limited exceptions) are only interested in the bottom line.


The market - the customers, you and I - have indicated by our behavior as market participants, that we want good prices and fast service. The only way to do this is with a flexible workforce.

Another point made in the article was that many temps come from countries where there is no economy to speak of. Many Westerners are spoilt; a bad job and a little money is much, much better than no job and no money.

As bad as that is...

[f00zbll]

I've heard horror stories from friends. One in particular has to do with foriegn programmers who are brought in with work visas. The hiring company holds both the visa and their passport. The programmers are threaten that if they don't work 12hrs a day, they'll be sent back. Typically, the programmers are paid 1/4-1/2 the wages of a citizen. High tech is not immuned to slave labor practices and mentality. The whole idea of staying with a company for 50-60 years doesn't exist anymore. Although some companies use it as a selling point in their recruiting, most companies have a policy that dedicate the opposite. Now more than ever, intelligence is necessary for steady employment.

A picture of everyday business in America

[buckeyeguy]

I worked a few awful temp jobs shortly after getting out of college (back when 'entry level' stuff didn't exist in IT), so I can sympathize with the narrator of the Silicon Valley story.

But at the same time, this story happens in thousands of businesses around the country, every day of the year. The pay is low, the work is tedious, and the management oppressive and degrading. Where I work now, the fulfillment center is the major part of our company... supply-chain services, as it is being touted nowadays. It's the 'new economy' that was made so much around the start of 2000... but it's still the same old labor-intensive machine. So, IMHO, there's really little news to see here, for those of us who have worked outside the cubicle.

And temp agencies? Don't even get me started...

Is government really obsolete?

[Denito]

One of the most common sentiments on slashdot is how backwards governments are and how technology makes them obsolete.

But you see something like this-- maybe things like workplace safety standards are still important...
With all the libertarian sentiment here on /., its easy to forget the role that wired or not, there might still be an important role for gov...

No Respect

[Hates]

Reading an article like this does nothing but make me feel quite weak and ill. Thinking that people in a country like the USA are treated like nothing more then a pair of hands really really bothers me.

I read sooo many articles written by these company CEO's or whatever, telling the reader how they are now customer focused and how great they are doing, but the honest truth is they treat their employees as if they aren't human.

Companies need to learn that it's their work force that makes them what they are. I'm sure they believe they are being effictive by getting rid of "bad" workers who complain and want better standards, but have they ever really just taken a step back and wondered how much BETTER production would be if they were to treat their workers with respect and give them the security they need and desire?!?

Re:That's Life

[fmaxwell]

Not everybody can both live where they want to live and have the ideal job. If there aren't any decent jobs available in your area... news flash... you may have to move.

That's right! To hell with your family that lives in the area. If you mother's cancer kills her while you're 2,000 miles away, so what? You'll be living where the good jobs are.

You need a clue. Some people have family ties, kids that they don't want to yank out of school and away from their friends, and other circumstances that make becoming a nomad to chase jobs around the country impossible.

That's just the way it is. Reality bites...

So no one should have a social conscience or work to improve the realities of life? Maybe Jonas Salk should have just said "People get polio. Reality bites" and then moved on...

Been There

[ScumBiker]

Having been a temp worker in Florida, back in the early '80s, I can really sympathize with the article. It totally sucks not knowing if you can even pay the rent, much less eat. I was working at a pc board plant. Something like 80% of the workers were temp. Everybody was scared of getting shitcanned. The pay was terrible and the managers/supervisors constantly screamed and threatened people. Lovely environment, in other words. Thank managed to pull myself out of that morass and moved forward.

All I can say to people that are trying to live on temp work is, get to school! Somehow, anyhow. I don't care if it's tech school for one semester. Even that little bit of knowledge can help. Also, learn English. Learn how to speak it so that even slow midwestern people like me can understand you. I know it's challenging to the extreme, but my ancestors came here and had to do the same thing. BTW, I'm *not* trying to flame or be prejudiced here, I'm simply trying to state facts. Please read and judge accordingly.

First impression

[inerte]

Editor asked to compare. I read and saw:

Raj talks about people. He cites a lot of names, feelings, relationships. It's constructed around what people are feeling about a situation, the actions that they are seeing and their reactions;

And Amazon's Management talks about numbers. It quotes lots of statistics, managers, and 'market condition'. It's constructed around what people are analysing about a situation, the actions that they are taking and the reactions.

It's classical from a literature perspective. And IMHO, I prefer much more Raj's point of view.

But maybe I am a misplaced human on a capitalist society ;-)

Re:First impression

[jht]

You're spot-on, but there's a catch:

Raj knows his co-worker/fellow temps. He forms relationships with them. But there's only a small group (relatively) that he works with. He doesn't know most of the other temps, nor does he know the workers on the other shifts, nor most of the full-timers, or anyone at their other facilities.

He might know _of_ them, but to Raj they aren't part of his world. If something happens to them, it won't really register on his radar screen because he no personal connection with them. This is important - it's part of why the management at HP (or Amazon) can easily deal with cutting workers to boost profits. These workers aren't part of their world. They're just statistics on a P&L sheet. They don't have a direct relationship with the people their fates depend on.

Is this necessarily bad? I'm not sure. I think depersonalization is a necessary evil to go with growth - people only have room for x amount of connections in their own "personal network". managers can only handle a certain number of direct reports on average before things become inefficient (not enough time to maintain the connections or devote enough attention to each person). That's where middle management, sub-groups, and smaller organizational units come into play - to preserve as much of that as possible.

The largest company I've worked for (where I am now) employs 152 people directly. But for the last two years we've also been a part of a much larger "virtual" organization (through a pool with several other insurance companies of equivalent or larger size). Once we leave the cozy confines of my 152-person location, a lot of these issues come into play - decisions have been made that affected people that probably would have been made differently in a smaller company.

That's not all bad here, though. We've formed a lot of official and quasi-official working groups within the combined organization that are as small as possible - the objective being to try whenever feasible to keep decisions from happening in a vacuum and to preserve the personal aspect of working together as much as one can. Has it been perfect? Of course not. But it hasn't been too bad either, thankfully.

In the end, people need to be aware that they are ultimately responsible for their own fates. Raj can go work elsewhere, or go to another part of the country, or learn a skill that will allow him to escape the permatemping world. Or he can settle for what he has now. Some of his co-workers, sadly, will never do better - perhaps a few of them are handling the most they are capable of. As another poster to this thread said when quoting Judge Smails (the reference was from Caddyshack, BTW), "The world needs ditch-diggers, too". But most can eventually go as far as their skills will take them, provided they make sure that the skills they have are always needed enough to ensure relatively high-paying work.

Being a human and a capitalist aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But the bigger the organization, the tougher it is. People also get torn between their connections to others and their own fates - it's tough for the manager of a temporary workforce to form any lasting attachment to their workers when your own job may depend on being able to dicipline and/or terminate workers on the instructions of the people your own job depends on.

If you're the person in those shoes, and you feel uncomfortable with it, then I'd definitely say you're human.

NO LOGO

[why-is-it]

The tactics described in this article here are very similar to the ones the large brands use on contract workers in the export zones in SE Asia. Naomi Klein describes it at length in her book NO LOGO.

Strange that these same management techniques which work so well on the poor and uneducated overseas are now being used domestically.

The alternative

[slow_flight]

Ok, so it looks like the consensus here is that these poor folks are being used and abused, and Big Business just doesn't care.

What's the alternative? Pay them $20 and hour and let them come and go as they please, or stop the line whenever they want to chat about their weekend? How willing are you to pay $500 for a printer that currently costs $125?

If this story was about HP automating the box line and putting some number of temp workers out on the street, or moving the work to Mexico where the labor costs are even lower, would that be better?

Temp work exists for a reason. I have done temp work myself. My view of it was work I could get at the drop of a hat, and quit the same way. If you need to work for 3 weeks, are you going to take a job somewhere knowing full well you're only going to be there 3 weeks? Yes, there are perma-temps, and there are inarguably strong financial incentives on the part of the company to staff in that manner, but the cold, hard reality is that this is the kind of migrant labor these workers chose. Granted, they probably didn't have a whole lot of options to choose from, but it's not like some recruiter painted a rosy picture of temp-Nirvana to these people. They made a fully-informed decision to accept the work, and given the angst shown over being laid-off, seemed to appreciate that they had work at all.

Workers already have the power!

[anomaly]

Low wage jobs can be unpleasant. The managers there frequently have no training in how to work with people. Production oriented jobs like the one described in the article are often focused on keeping the line moving.

And yet, these people choose to work there for $8 an hour. This is their choice. They also opt to live in one of the most expensive places in the world. This too is a choice.

Before you pound on me for being heartless, it may be important to note that I have passed through that place, as well. I come from a poor family in an economically depressed area.

I have worked as a laborer doing back-breaking work by the sweat of my brow. I have also worked in mall jobs that were production oriented. "No talking! You're here to work, not have fun!" I have worked in food service as a busboy and waiter for long hours and late nights.

It was my experience in those places that motivated me to get my education. Without those jobs, I would not have chosen to finish school.

People can go to school, even while working a low-wage job. I did it, my parents did it in their 40's, and YOU can do it, too.

If it's too expensive where you live, MOVE to somewhere cheaper. Don't want to move? Be creative, find a way to make it work. Don't want to do that? Then accept the fact that you will work that kind of job for the rest of your days.

The future is in your hands. Repeat after me: "If it's to be, it's up to me. If it's to be, it's up to me. If it's to be....."

Re:Workers already have the power!

[anomaly]

With all due respect, I'm no superman, and you wouldn't have to be superman to do it either.

I went to school with some brilliant people, but I also went to school with some folks who weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, either.

For example, my senior year I was in an all-out run for head of one class against a man who was a laid-off coal miner.

Nice guy, but on his best day, he had an average IQ. On his BEST day. One thing this guy had was a work ethic. He put in more hours than could be counted to make up for his lack of mental capacity, and it paid off in spades! This guy was the top of his classes because of the sweat equity.

If Carl could succeed in school, anyone could. He was a hard worker with a family. Certainly he and his family made huge sacrifices to get him through college, but that was his choice, too.

I've heard that Henry Ford said something to the effect of "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Let's inspire people to achieve rather than focus on limitations. Let's help people choose to make a better way for themselves rather than stay stuck in the mire.

Re:Workers already have the power!

[haruharaharu]

This reminds me of a woman I have heard of; she has an IQ of around 75 and a PHD. People ask her how she could possible do that with such a low IQ. "It just takes longer."