I may not have a McJob according to the above definition, but its pretty close. My job at JobLand TM certainly is low pay, low prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, and no-future.
We were all gathering our breath after having loaded 120 pound boxed park benches for 2 hours in a shipping container that had an air temperature of 42 C (108 F). There were 650 boxes, which takes a LOT more that 2 hours to move. One of us was carrying a thermometer in his pocket (why exactly, I’m not sure, but it certainly had an application at this point). Somehow it wasn’t any sort of relief to realize that it really was hot, it was somehow psychologically more draining. Doing this kind of work in those kind of conditions makes this something I’ll call a McJob simply because of the condescending nature of the definition. Doing this kind of thing, any monetary compensation at the end of the day is sort of a moot point in my mind. I simply want to get the hell away from there. Run away… run away! Thankfully, my prayers were answered. I got to have the JobLand TM orientation meeting which lasted 2 hours. This basically went over the various WHMIS/MSDS information that denotes the symbols on, and handling of, dangerous materials. I wrote “very demanding” test that determined that I could indeed remember what the symbol for flammable was (I had to know four in total). Anyone who thinks this is a “very demanding” test of memory and knowledge should be lead into a university organic chemistry or calculus class and fed to the circling sharks. This was all fine and good until… uhm, “we” pissed of the lady by putting a couple of these symbols on the coffee pot. While I didn’t actually consume any of this liquid hellfire, it certainly appeared to be caustic enough to rival battery acid. The merriment once again stopped when were were told to “be serious – this is important” when we laughed at the forklift safety video. If YOU can watch forklifts spinning in a warehouse in a sychroswimming-like manner with “Danger Zone”, that Top Gun movie soundtrack tune in the background without laughing then you need help. More help.
The other exciting job related event this week was that I am once again without payment for my exciting JobLand TM work. Last Monday I once again need to explain to the HR people that getting the number of a bank account correct is really important. This happened last time too. Strike two.
I’ve also been introduced to exactly how much income tax sucks. Yuck!
I fully understand the concept that we are starting to run out of phone numbers. This is all due to the sheer volumes of cell phones, pagers, internet lines, etc. So the addition of a new area code and “10 digit” dialing to the Vancouver area came as no surprise. What is most annoying about it is that they have introduced the “10 digit” dialing well before the addition of the new area code. In addition, you have to dial it even within your OWN area code, which is becoming a major pain in the rump. I don’t’ understand. If I want to call Bob up the street, and Bob is in my area code, why do I have to put in the area code? If Bob was across the river, in some other area code, I completely understand. Bob is NOT – and yet I am left with having to dial 604 in front of every %$#*&^@ number I have to call. What bothers me even more is that if I forget, the call will still go through, but I have to listen to an annoying message that condescendingly berates me for not having dialed 604 in front of the number. What bothers me even MORE than this is that frequently the system fucks up and I have to listen to this message two or three times before they put the call through! New York doesn’t have to deal with this – and we are waaay better than New York! I’m thinking of suing the phone company for all my pain and suffering, but since this is Canada, it probably wouldn’t be successful. Strangely enough, it would probably work in New York, which is likely why they didn’t screw over people there. They’d be killed.
We now return you to the year 2001, already in progress…