Read Online A Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levison - Free Book Online Page B

say, “What am I going to do with you?” Something else is going on here, I figure, as it always is. I’ve done a fine job, I’m an experienced and reliable cook, but they always want something more than just what the classified ad tells you. They want a good ass-kissing. I might be capable of it, if it wasn’t demanded from me.
    â€œI’ll give you another week,” she tells me as she turns away, ending the meeting. I leave quietly.
    â€œWhat was that about?” Jacques asks.
    â€œShe thinks I have a bad attitude.”
    Jacques laughs. “She not been fucked in a year.”
    A week goes by, and Marci never talks to me again. My attitude is no different, but the restaurant is so understaffed that even she has the common sense not to fire me just to prove she can. Restaurants are sprouting up in the area like weeds. Fourteen corporate restaurants have opened in the past six months, and with each one needing about sixty employees, that’s 840 people who can get jobs. Restaurants fight aggressively for staff, offering bounties to employees who bring in friends, running larger and larger newspaper ads, even offering sign-on bonuses. It’s an employee’s market, and I’m riding the wave.
    The work is hard, but the people I work with are hard workers. All of them have another job, and many go straight from one job to the other five or six days a week. This makes for a seventy-hour work week with no overtime, having to be on your feet the whole time. They never complain. The common refrain is, “You get used to it.”
    I’ve worked seventy-hour weeks, often for months on end, but I’d never say I got used to it. My body was fighting for rest the whole time. But if you want your own apartment, or an insured car, or legal cable, it’s now a necessity. What single job can provide one individual with a comfortable lifestyle? So by the time these guys have paid for all the things they want, they never have time to use them because they’re always at one restaurant or another, throwing burgers on a grill.
    I prefer to keep my time off and just get by.
    Robb, the manager who dreams of one day working in a slaughterhouse, is intrigued by the fact that I have a college degree. “You could go into management with that,” he tells me. “You’re underutilized.”
    â€œWhat’s so great about management?”
    â€œMore money, for starters. Look at you. You’re wasting yourself.”
    I hear that a lot, but the options aren’t all that intriguing. In order to not waste myself, I have to have a career in management and work a minimum of sixty hours a week doing essentially the same things I’m doing now. If you factor in twenty hours of overtime, it doesn’t pay more, it just offers more work. In fact, it pays about a dollar an hour less.
    â€œYou’d get benefits,” he adds excitedly. “And sick days.”
    This is a man who desperately wants to get rid of his job and is trying to convince me how attractive it is. “You don’t like your job,” I point out.
    â€œIt’s not for me. But it’d be perfect for you.”
    Is he trying to groom me to replace him? He’s a straightforward fellow, not one to have a hidden agenda. I think he just wants the best for me.
    â€œI’ll think about it,” I say, and he rolls his eyes at my stubbornness.
    I’m taking home over $300 a week here, no stress. When I’m done, I go. There’s no possibility of them transferring me to another store, like they do with managers. Most importantly, I can mind my own business, and don’t have to wander around making sure everyone is grinning.
    The next week, Ken, the general manager, stops me as I’m punching out to go home. “I hear you’re interested in management,” he says.
    â€œNot really.” I don’t relish the extra work, but there’s a security in management,