Let There Be Work

The computer screen glows with a soft blue backdrop. The table with the notepad sits at my left, as does my landline phone (yes, such contraptions still exist). I’m ready to work…except there is no work.

Is there any sadder, more pathetic tableau than an eager worker ready to work with no

work?

The foretold email came Monday morning. Changes were afoot, we were forewarned from the masters at the part-time, at-home copyediting job I’ve toiled at for a year. The harshness of those changes become painfully apparent after reading the email. My hours were cut, and not just by a little, but a lot.

My hours have fluctuated from between 18 to 24, an acceptable rate for a part-time job. This time, however, the cut in hours dropped to a shocking fewer than nine. Egads! Not only that, the editing queues I was switched to were clearly the dregs with very little copy to edit, ensuring I wouldn’t even reach that puny limit.

Thinking it may have been a misprint (yeah, right), I inquired whether those hours were correct. I sent another email to another supervisor, again asking why my hours were slashed so dramatically.

The responses I received were both hurtful and confusing. The one supervisor said the head honcho was concerned over my “mistakes” (more on that in a bit) and wanted me to improve my editing before I would be given any more hours.

Yet that very same head honcho later replied that those hours were the best they could do and that more editing opportunities may open up in the future. No mention of “mistakes.”

What is going on here?

Let’s first address the “mistakes.” (Apologies at the onset for what is surely self-serving and passive-aggressive excuses on my part.) Did I make mistakes? Yes, as does every copy editor. It’s the nature of the job — you only get noticed when you make a mistake, never for the numerous times you caught a misspelling or corrected a wrong fact or rewrote a horrible piece to make it readable.

Some of the mistakes were legitimate and on me. I misspelled a proper noun. Others classify as more subjective, and based on the preference of the head honcho. In some instances, style points were not clearly defined, at least in my mind. I could argue those points, but to what end?

To what end, too, can I ever hope to get back in the good graces of the head honcho? I know from painful past experience, once you get a reputation as a “bad” worker, it’s very difficult to change that perception (especially when your workload has been slashed to near nothing. How am I to prove any improvement?). Indeed, it’s nearly impossible. When I asked the head honcho twice to clarify what he meant when he told the supervisor about my mistakes, I never received a reply, which I think is disrespectful.

Yet I’m also getting a feeling there is more going on here than my mistakes. The head honcho’s first reply indicated there were cutbacks in assignments from the clients. And the supervisor also mentioned in a later email that the head honcho was under pressure from his bosses.

Yet as someone who has been laid off twice due to corporate budget cuts, I’ve become accustomed to being jerked around by bosses. None of this surprises me. In fact, the signs started about six months ago when they outsourced some of the writing responsibilities to the Philippines. (I kid you not.) Then they pulled out the go-to corporate cheap trick of hiring an intern (aka free labor).

This is merely the logical progression of vicious, zero-sum corporate cost-cutting. What’s next? Robots to write and edit the stories? What happens when those AI marvels make mistakes? Slash their hours? Replace them with a newer technological model?

I also wonder if the other copy editors’ hours have been slashed similarly. I thought about asking them, but thought better of it. It would be intrusive and they are under no obligation to tell me. Since I was the last one hired, I stood to lose the most hours versus the more senior copy editors. They have seniority.

I wonder as well, why go through this pretense of stringing me along? Do they want me to quit? If there is no money to pay me, then lay me off. Or, tell me there is no work right now, but there may be in two months and I can start up again at that time.

Hey, I’m a part-time 1099 worker for this company. Meaning, I receive no benefits nor do I possess any employment rights. When an employer wants to rid itself of a full-time employee, they typically make his or her life miserable in the hopes they will quit, thereby freeing them of any unemployment payments or severance pay. I know how this game is played. I’ve been there myself and seen it happen to co-workers.

But in this instance, that is not the case. They can let me go without any explanation or payment. Just a fare-thee-well email. So why jerk me around like this? It’s unnecessary and frankly, cruel.

Now, I’m thrust back into that same bad place I fell into after my two layoffs. One night, as I nestled my head on my pillow, tears stung my eyes: I’m stupid, I’m incompetent. I’ll never work again.

What do I tell my family and friends? That I was let go because of my mistakes? Then, they’ll think I’m stupid and incompetent. I know my sister. If I told her, and I haven’t yet, she’ll profess sympathy to my face, then cut me to piece in front of her friends. “Oh, my sister, what a stupid idiot.” Better to say my hours were cut and leave it at that.

I’m also irritated and ashamed of myself. I worked hard for this godawful company. I took on extra work when asked, toiled over the weekends, declined other jobs when offered, all because I felt loyalty to these bottom-line loving jerks. Ha! I was the jerk, thinking my hard work and loyalty would ever be reciprocated. When will I ever learn? Maybe now I have.

This whole distressing incident underscores how precarious my financial situation is as well. Between this part-time copy editing job and my content marketing writing duties, I was pulling down about half of what I made in my previous full-time job. Not flush by any means, but I was able to pay my bills without dipping (too much) into my savings. Now? Well, it’s going to be a lot tougher, and I’m not sure I can survive much longer.

Right now, I don’t know what my next move is. Right now, the fall chill has descended and my beloved Mets’ mangled season came to a jolting yet fitting end. I need time to think and let my simmering depression lift. Perhaps my hope of cobbling together two or three part-time jobs is no longer financially viable. Do I try for a full-time job — even though my chances of getting one are pretty much zilch at this point?

For now, I’ll wait a bit to see if the head honcho comes through on his hint of more editing opportunities and therefore, more hours.

Until then, I sit ready to work.

Requiem for a Hard Drive

It died yesterday, the hard drive in my Mac Book.

For six years, during spans of employment and unemployment, it chugged along until it could no longer.

It was old, I knew that. So when I turned it on yesterday and it took longer than usual to boot up and I heard ominous clicking sounds from the innards of the computer, I panicked but was not surprised. I really should have seen this coming. In fact, I knew the day of reckoning was near. So much so that I recently took money from a retirement account, ostensibly to pay bills, but I knew a big chunk of that coin would someday soon pay for a new model when the inevitable day came when my old computer died.

I called Apple, but the nice lady could do nothing for me except make an afternoon appointment at the nearby Apple store.  

I lugged the heavy, now-dead computer there, and told the young techie what the problem was. He took it into the back room to do more tests. (As a cancer survivor, more tests means bad news.) Sure enough, he confirmed the worst: The hard drive had died and all my files were lost. (Please spare me the I told you so’s about backing up my files. I didn’t. I’m no

techie. And how many people in this age of the Cloud and google docs backs up their files anyway?)

The choice was this: Keep the old computer with a new hard drive inserted in it, take the now-dead hard drive to a data recovery service in the hopes of resurrection (which may or may not be possible and would cost at $300), or buy a new computer.

Merely replacing the old hard drive with a new one would have been the cheapest option, but one that would have left me without a computer for days. With no computer, I can’t work, and if I don’t work I don’t make money. I need money.

And like everyone else, I like shiny and new. So I bought a new MacBook Air (the cheapest one I could reasonably afford while still buying one useful for work), and will contact a data recovery service to see if anything can be salvaged from my old hard drive.

The irony isn’t lost. Me, the person who rails about employers who only want to hire young people ditched without hesitation my faithful old computer whose only crime was that it aged. The hard drive may have died, but what remained could have worked again. Yep, folks, I laid off my old computer. Just like that.

Apparently, I’m like every potential employer: I want shiny and new and easy. So much easier to hire a young person, right? So much easier to train on new tech systems. So much easier to justify the lower salary, even if they don’t have the experience or qualifications for the job. They come with no baggage, unlike my old hard drive with its decades-old files and photos. Who wants old?

Is this what out society has come to? It’s one thing to discard a computer for a newer model, but a person? Just like that old hard drive, perhaps our knowledge and life experience can be saved and put to use once again. Here’s hoping ... for me and the old hard drive.

The Office Coffee Cup

I opened the kitchen cabinet door and I spied them. The duo of office coffee cups I used at my two previous full-time jobs.

The taller, leaner one was fashioned to look like a glass beaker for measuring liquids. I bought it years ago at a nearby science museum where I brought my niece and nephew when they were much younger. So the science theme fits.

The other mirrors a more traditional ceramic mug emblazed with the face one of my favorite authors from my English Lit major days, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Admittedly pretentious, I bought it — where else? — Barnes & Noble. It’s tan and sedate.

The office cup was the first thing I brought to my job after I was hired. It was the first item packed away after being laid off.

Now, they sit on my shelf, never used since I carted them home. Like me, they’re still there, but unlikely to fulfill their purpose ever again.

I remember when I was hired again after being out of work for 16 months, I didn’t want to take the same coffee cup with me to my new job. Genetically superstitious (I blame it on my Italian heritage), I thought it would bring bad luck. Whatever karma I believed I would avoid with a different coffee cup was sadly misguided. I was laid off again.

I don’t know why I keep them. Why not just trash them (as I was) or recycle them (as I’m hoping to be in a new job). Maybe I keep them as a reminder.

A reminder of what, I wonder. Two painful layoffs and extended periods of unemployment. Still-hovering financial struggles. My fading hope of finding work. Perhaps I simply don’t want to discard items that could still be useful someday. Too bad potential employers didn’t view me the same way.

Is there any more depressing and archaic symbol of office work than the office coffee cup? It’s the first thing workers grab in the morning, whether in a haughty paper cup from Starbucks, the ceramic mug on their desk filled with bleak-tasting, office-brewed coffee, those blue-and-white Greek-styled ones from a food truck or diner, or, my favorite, the more egalitarian Dunkin Donuts orange-and-pink version. Sometimes, commuters fill a carafe with coffee so they can drink in the joe while driving or taking mass transit. I once took a carafe on a light rail train and spilled it.

Then, at their desks, workers sip the steaming liquid, simultaneously calmed and jolted for the day presented before them. It's a comforting ritual, as long as the coffee doesn't spill. Oh, my, how life and coffee can be upended...

Yet sometimes I think I never want to bring another coffee cup to an office ever again. I'll drink my morning coffee at home.

The Right to Say No

A few weeks ago, I declined two freelance jobs.

Granted, these jobs were low-paying and just so you don’t think I was being a lazy bum, I was juggling several other freelance assignments at the time. I honestly could not take on

more assignments. Still can’t, at least not now.

Nevertheless, saying no was a major step for me. When I first started on this freelance journey, I said yes to every assignment, only to find myself working seven days a week with no social life (nonexistent as it is) and getting stressed out. I soon realized that is no way to live, no matter how much I needed the money. I wasn’t doing myself any favors, nor would I be an asset to the companies if I turned in sloppy work or missed a deadline because I was frazzled or doing too much at the same time.

So I thought hard and long, and said no, which is never easy for me. I was raised to be a “good girl,” to do everything everybody wanted, expected and asked of me, whether family, friends or bosses. I believed if I said “yes” to everything, acted nice, and worked really, really hard, people would like me and I wouldn’t get laid off.

How’d that work out for me, eh? I’ve been laid off twice and repeatedly stabbed in the back by work colleagues.

Now, with the perspective of age and two painful layoffs, I realize I do have the right to say no, to pick where and with whom I work and for what compensation.

Companies possess the right to hire, fire and lay off workers with no explanation given. What they fail to realize is that workers have the same right to choose their workplace.

I understand the needs of companies change over time, and staffing levels reflect that. (Yeah, two layoffs in four years kinda taught me that.) Going back to those freelance jobs I declined, in one instance, after submitting several assignments to the company, I was told they had enough and wouldn’t require my services anymore. In the other, the company was undergoing a reorganization of their freelance staff, so I had no way of knowing I would be retained. (Reorganization is a code word for “layoffs.”)

Again, I wasn’t upset. Freelancing is inherently unstable, and companies remain free to cast off workers without any explanation.

But it’s also true that I have rent and bills to pay. I simply moved on to other paying jobs. The heck with them.

So I was a bit surprised when I was asked if I wanted to work for them again. I politely told both that I could not because I had other freelance assignment on my desk. One lady understood and said to contact her when I was free to do assignments for her. I might. The other guy never responded to my email.

I was also a bit amused by their requests. Didn’t it occur to them I took other assignments? Just as they rejected me, don’t I have the same right to decline their offer — or take another job?

Our society has, I believe, a rather warped perception of laid-off workers. We’re considered unemployable losers — even though we did nothing to merit our termination. We must take any job offered, without any consideration to whether we want the job or not. 

Contrast to that to someone who quits their job with no new job lined up to “find themselves.” They’re considered brave — they stuck it to the corporation and are viewed as free spirits — even though they may have made a really bad decision. Leaving a job with no job in hand is never justified unless you are being harassed or the job is severely impacting your health and wellbeing. Merely being unhappy at work or believing the job is beneath you is never a good reason to quit without simultaneously landing your next  — hopefully better — job.  

Likewise, someone who is fired gets sympathy, yet their firing may have been perfectly justified by poor work performance or some stupid or unethical action on their part.

No so with laid-off workers. Tossed aside by corporate cost cutting, our futures decided in some closed-door meeting of the All White Males Club, and perpetually rejected by prejudiced HR departments, we sometimes feel as if we have no free will at all.

Saying no returns some free will and yes, power to us laid-off workers. At least for one brief moment we don’t feel like Miss Colombia, the Fredo of beauty contestants.

Of course, there may come a time when my financial situation dictates I must take whatever lousy job offered. I haven’t reached that point. Yet. I'm self-aware enough to admit to my folly.

I simply don’t buy the belief I have no free will. I have the right to decide with whom I want to work — jerks need not apply. Just as companies low-ball workers on salaries, I’ll grab the highest paying jobs.

And I have the right to say no.