I bought a new work shirt at the start of each new contract, because I liked having a selection. I’d rather wear a button-up I’d outgrown than hear “hey, we’re twinsies” when passing someone in the hall. I once kept my favorite navy blue checker-print in the closet for six months because a manager who ended every meeting by saying “cool beans” had the same one.
Just like I couldn’t tell the difference between the name brand mac and cheese and the generic, I figured the world couldn’t tell the difference between a $20 Old Navy button-up and an $80 one from Nordstrom. Old Navy designers were smart enough to know that no one wants to advertise they wear Old Navy and have kept the clothes free of logos. Not representing a name brand aligned with my aesthetic and it also made it easy to forget that the hour of work I did to pay for the shirt was more than a week’s pay for the person who made it.
I was only frivolous when it came to books. I got the same amount of pleasure from owning them as I did from reading them, and as a former English major I was conditioned to highlight passages and make notes in the margin. I loved that two years after reading a book I could pick it up and flip to a passage that moved me enough to underline it. Or when I read a great book that I knew a friend would enjoy, I liked that I could pull it from my shelf to share.
There was always something in my Powell’s online shopping cart. When I read a review about a new rock-and-roll memoir that looked interesting or I found out that my favorite author released a new book, I’d add it to my cart. My bookshelf was plentiful and I had enough unread books to last me a year, which is why I never checked out my cart when I was unemployed. I’d stop adding once my total was over fifty dollars, because that’s the minimum amount you need to spend for free shipping. (Everyone should do this instead of buying from Amazon.) On a break from searching job sites, I’d find myself browsing through my cart and looking forward to the day when those beautiful books would show up at my front door and I’d be faced with the difficult yet satisfying task of deciding what to read first.
Books were the only items I purchased when I had perfectly good, unused options on hand. Even when I was in the sweet spot, where I regularly added to my savings and 401(k) and had six months left on my contract, I never replaced something as long as it was working.
I was thirty-five years old when I bought bedsheets for the first time. I’d lived my adult life with two sets and never felt the need to replace them. I had one set of flannel sheets that I’d pilfered from my parents’ closet when I was a senior in college and a cotton set my mom sent Ashley and me when we moved into our first apartment. I used the flannel ones in the colder months and the cotton ones during the rest of the year. I washed them on a fairly regular basis and ignored the fact that the pillowcases didn’t match. One of the cotton cases had been ruined when Ashley and I brought a bottle of merlot to bed. I replaced it with a Star Wars pillowcase I’d had since I was five.
I didn’t see a reason to spend money on something I already owned, until one night when I couldn’t sleep. I rolled around the rough sheets like I had been for the previous two months and realized that I deserved better. I was making the highest hourly wage of my life and still had eight months remaining on my contract. Earlier that night I’d signed a forty-dollar bar tab without giving it a second thought, yet I deprived myself of new sheets because it seemed like a waste of money.
I did the math and decided that $34.99 for a set of jersey sheets was a viable investment. I would use them every day for at least half the year and figured the long run cost was twenty cents a day for the first year, and nothing but profit after that was worth it.
With soft sheets draped across my chest, it dawned on me that I’d lowered my quality of life just because I didn’t think a necessity ever needed to be replaced.
I thought about the can opener with a broken handle that pinched my skin. For two years I’d dreaded making tuna sandwiches because preparation risked slicing my palm. It worked though, so I didn’t see a reason to spend six bucks on a new one. Not until experiencing the joys of comfortable sheets.
When I got to the kitchen section of Target and saw all the things I could upgrade in my apartment, I turned into P. Diddy tryna blow a check. I threw a can opener with reinforced grips in my basket, then grabbed a nonstick spatula to replace the one I’d accidentally acquired from a roommate when I was nineteen. I got a kitchen towel, so I’d no longer have to walk to the bathroom every time I needed to dry my hands, and bought a small pot for all the cans of soup I now felt comfortable buying because the can opener situation had been resolved. The total came to twenty-five dollars, and I was much happier in the kitchen.
In high school, my friends and I would go to the mall when we had nothing better to do. We passed the time flipping through band T-shirts and baseball caps. I only browsed while they bought things without the thought of whether the purchase was a necessity or a luxury item.
Living with my parents meant all my basic necessities were taken care of, but spending the money I made from after-school jobs still required budgeting. When my friends wanted to stop at the diner before the record store I had to decide between eating and buying a CD. Knowing there would always be boxes of mac and cheese back at my parents’ place, I always opted for the CD. I could enjoy music much longer than a meal.
My friends threw back milk shakes and bacon cheeseburgers while I drank water with quiet excitement and thought about all the possible discoveries I might encounter in the import bin. Knowing that buying a plate of chicken strips could jeopardize my chance of affording a Clash import made the tired lemon floating at the top of my glass of water refreshing.
In eighth grade my parents could have easily bought me a new bike without putting a dent in their finances, but they didn’t. They wanted to teach me the most basic lesson when it came to money. If you want something, you have to work for it. It’s like they knew my adult life would be one of unpredictable finances and wanted to make sure I was prepared.
I would have missed out that summer if I didn’t have a bike. Whether it was a ride to a girl’s house whose parents weren’t home or a race through the trails, all plans started on bikes. I wouldn’t have been able to keep up without one and would have spent that summer alone, which I guess meant it was a necessity.
Thinking about Thumbs
During a conversation about improving the user experience, I look at the person speaking and remember that she was once a baby with tiny thumbs. She cried when needing to be fed, changed, or held. I hear her voice, but there are no words. Everything’s a wash, like waves crashing against rock. And it all falls into perspective. As if my whole life I’ve been looking at the world through a coffee straw and then, out of nowhere, the straw is pulled away, and I catch a glimpse of everything. The world, the past, the present, all of it—including me, an insignificant speck, who, somehow, came into being after billions of years of evolution and a precise line of consummation that eventually lead to this moment.
The last time I peeked at the universe like this it was 6:30 a.m. and I was waiting for the bus. I was pressed against a brick wall and trying to hide from the rain under the six-inch gutter jutting out from the top of the building. It wasn’t enough. The gutter acted as a funnel, streaming water off the building onto my neck and down into my jacket.
I looked over at the hooded girl next to me. She didn’t appear bothered by the weather. She rapidly thumbed at her phone, apparently unconcerned when a fat raindrop exploded on the screen. I was in awe of the controlled chaos that was her thumbs tapping at the keys. I found it beautiful, like ballet, but then felt silly for thinking that.
My mind opened up and it occurred to me that there was a fifth digit on my hand, set lower and opposable, and that I was waiting for a giant metal box on wheels, which ran on decomposed organisms that died long before my oldest ancestor crawled out of the ocean.
I suppressed these obvious observations, or else I’d act on instinct alone and try to initiate sex with strangers
at bus stops. Instead I allowed myself to be punished by the weather, waiting to be carted off to a precise stack of stones, to spend the best hours of the day convincing myself that I was important.
These flashes never last longer than a moment or else I would be paralyzed with panic by calculating every experience and judging its value, knowing that I don’t know when I’ll return to the nothingness from which I came, tortured with guilt for each second I didn’t take advantage of on a rainy Seattle day.
The bus arrived, and I followed the texting girl onboard. We both stood in the back, and she continued thumbing those keys. But the moment had passed. It no longer looked like ballet, and the bus was just a bus.
Five Types of Temps
The Full-of-Hope Temp
I worked with Hair Gel on an Amazon contract I accepted at a time when my finances didn’t allow me to be choosy with employment. The position was a step backward for me in terms of pay and responsibility, but for Hair Gel it was the first step toward the American Dream. He was fresh out of college and parted his hair on a razor sharp line that was held fast with a glossy coating of what I imagined came in a sleek silver container and was referred to as product.
We met in the lobby on our first day, and I took a deep breath before revealing it was my fourth contract in four years.
“That’s cool,” he said without realizing I was ashamed of my circumstances.
He saw value in my experience and wanted to learn from a veteran who’d survive multiple tours of combat. He asked about the process of moving from temp to full-time employee.
“Buddy up with management and look for opportunities to improve workflow,” I advised.
Two days later I saw him in the break room nodding enthusiastically at a manager’s detailed description of a video game character he had created.
The work was frustrating because procedure was constantly changing. Regular tweaks to the system were an attempt to improve productivity, but having to learn new guidelines once a month made it difficult for some temps to get comfortable with the tools. I anticipated the changes, as it had been the case with every other Amazon contract I’d done, and adapted quickly. Hair Gel had a difficult time keeping up. Looking for a little guidance, he moved to an unoccupied desk to be closer to more experienced temps who could assist him.
The video-game-character-creating manager discovered the move and marched into our office red-faced.
“Why the hell are you here?” he said. The ambient keyboard chatter paused.
“I just thought I’d work better in here since these guys can help me if I have a question.”
“That’s not how it works,” he said.
“Sorry, I just wanted to make sure I was doing a good job.”
“We have assigned seats for a reason.” He pointed to the door. “Go back to your desk.”
Hair Gel collected his things and stared at the carpet as he exited the room.
“People,” video-game-character-creating manager said. “If assigned seats weren’t important, we wouldn’t have them.” He spun on his heel and exited the room, leaving behind a thick cloud of negativity that took thirty minutes to evaporate.
After being publicly humiliated, Hair Gel lost interest in my workplace wisdom. Instead, he asked me about Seattle’s nightlife, which he was discovering for the first time. He wanted to know the best places to get a cheap shot of whiskey and what bars had the best happy hour. His questions made me feel old because all the spots I’d frequented at his age were gone. Instead of tips, I shared nostalgic stories about the good old days of Capitol Hill, when you could get a stiff whiskey ginger at the Jade Pagoda for a buck-fifty and the patio at Linda’s was the best place to be on a summer afternoon. Having heard similar stories ten years prior about Charlie’s losing its charm after the smoking ban and how the Roanoke was overrun by hipsters, I worried I bored him, but he seemed genuinely interested and asked questions like “Was the old Comet as cool as everyone says?”
During the second month, mandatory overtime was implemented, requiring us to work weekends. Hair Gel showed up that first Saturday sweaty and blurry-eyed. He spent the day fidgeting in his chair while sucking down Gatorade. The aura of ambition that had surrounded him on that first day in the lobby was gone.
One Tuesday he called in sick to drop ecstasy at the beach. Oh, to be young again.
Hair Gel noticed that I was absent on mandatory Saturdays and asked me how I pulled it off.
“I babysit my nephew,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t have any family in Seattle?” he questioned, referencing an earlier conversation we had one afternoon when we were supposed to be reviewing a new systems of practice document.
“I don’t. My nephew lives in Arizona,” I said while smiling. “This place doesn’t dictate my weekends.”
“I see,” he said and leaned back in his chair. “Good excuse.”
“Overtime pay is great and worth taking advantage of, but it’s best to always have an excuse chambered,” I said. “If there’s an advantage to temping, it’s that you don’t owe the company anything outside of forty hours a week.”
“Even when they say it’s mandatory?”
“They can’t force me to work on a Saturday and leave my nephew home alone. That’s child endangerment.”
He laughed, but didn’t seem convinced.
“Think about it,” I said. “If work is so busy they have to institute mandatory overtime, it’s a result of being understaffed. As long as you’re a good worker, they’re not going to sacrifice letting you go because you missed a few Saturdays.”
“Good point.”
I’m not sure how much of his interest in my experience was genuine and how much of it was just small talk, but I enjoyed showing him the ropes. Besides his liberal use of hair gel, he reminded me a lot of myself at his age. Although I didn’t have a mentor giving me tips on my first job. It wasn’t until my third contract that I learned it was best to always have an excuse chambered. Of all the advice I gave him, I hope that was something he held onto. When you’re temporary, nothing should be mandatory.
The Let’s-Be-Friends Temp
Black Hoodie was the type of guy you felt bad for not liking. He was friendly, never bothered anyone with annoying questions, and shared his mints at meetings. For an eleven-month contract, he wore the same black hoodie every day, which somehow never appeared dirty—maybe he had a bunch of them. Within an hour after meeting him, he friend requested me on Facebook, which I found peculiar because I’d already forgotten his name, yet he knew my first and last.
It was hard to say why I didn’t like him, even after he picked up on that fact and was cordial enough to leave me alone in the break room and stopped asking about my weekend on Monday morning. He was a solid worker and was eager to help the less informed, but it only took one time for someone to learn that asking him a question, no matter how small, always resulted in a ten-minute interaction.
“Do you know how to print?” a young girl asked on her first day.
“Yeah,” Black Hoodie said. He leaned over her shoulder and pointed to an icon in the corner of her screen. “Open that up.” He moved his hand closer to her monitor and pressed his finger against the screen. “Just click that,” he said.
She dragged her cursor under the greasy fingerprint he left behind and hit the button.
“Follow me.” He escorted her across the office to the supply room that housed the printer.
“Where did you work before this?” he asked.
“Google,” she said.
“Cool!” he said with an embarrassing amount of enthusiasm. “Did you know Google is actually a typo? It was supposed to be Goggle, but someone spelled it wrong and they decided to go with it.”
“Neat,” she said.
“It is neat, isn’t it?”
He stood next to her as she waited for the printer to spit out her work. Her discomfort went unnoticed, and he continued interrogating her about her previous job.
/> “Was it a fun office?”
“I guess.”
“We like to have fun here. You should come with us to happy hour.”
“Do you do that regularly?”
“Kind of. Well, we haven’t yet, but it’s in the works. I’ll send you an invite.”
She retrieved the document, and he followed her back to her desk.
“The break room gets pretty busy at noon,” he said. “That’s why I eat lunch at 11:30.”
“Cool.” She turned to face her computer screen. The fingerprint had dried, but its impression remained.
“You should join me.”
“We’ll see,” she said. He watched along as she opened her email. She glanced over her shoulder and stared at him until he turned and returned to his desk.
Every Tuesday morning, in hopes of finding four people to form a pub trivia team, Black Hoodie sent out a team-wide email with the subject line “Let’s be nerdy and drink beers.” He’d follow up later in the day with ideas for team names like “The Rubix Cubicles” or “The Nine to Fivers.”
I enjoyed pub trivia, but never responded. I feared I’d be the only one to show and couldn’t risk being stuck in one of his meandering stories. In an early training session, he took a seat next to me. As we waited for it to get started, he told me a drawn-out story about returning a pair of pants to Target. There wasn’t even a payoff or an obstacle he had to overcome to return the pants. He just told me the details of waking up one Saturday morning and driving to Target to return a pair of pants that were too short. Traffic was good, and the exchange went flawlessly. I couldn’t figure out why he felt it was an interesting experience to share.
My coworkers must have had similar experiences because, by the end of the second week, no one sat next to him in meetings, and when he pulled out his tin of mints, everyone avoided eye contact.
Now for the Disappointing Part Page 13