I have a story for this. I wrote it when I was not a good writer but, we'll see if it fits...

I'm working on a piece to submit to this (and only really commenting here so I don't lose track of how to find the project).

I am afraid of this. I hope folks will appreciate the attention given to their story and take the suggestions from myself and fellow writers to heart - it will only strengthen the work, preparing it for publication.

Read Susan Neal's article with great interest. Can identify as I was a temp for nearly ten years. There were good times, but you do remember how e.g. they brought round the staff coffee trolley and you didn't get any because you were temp.

By the way, I have never come across a website so EDITORIALLY POLICED before! Aren't you afraid you will discourage the marginally illiterate who still have something valid to say?

Attention writers:

Please read through your drafts immediately after you post them, editing for errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar and basic dialog structure.

Attention reviewers: Please keep these guidelines in mind when choosing your star rating.

1. Does not fit this project.
 
2. Subject matter fits the project, but minimal attempt is made to follow submission guidelines.

3. Good story that could use a fair amount of editing.

4. Good story with only a few places here and there that could benefit from editing.

5. Perfect submission. Completely publishable with minimal or no editing.

Attention writers: Please let me know when and if you've revised your work.

Hanging on the Telephone / (Don't) Let Them Eat CAKE!

     A number of years ago, while I was a temp worker, I got assigned to work for one

of the largest phone providers in the United States. The office was in a rather

large office building with many many other businesses, though to notate the

stature of our company: The logo for our corporation was the only one in front of

a building that houses over 100 different companies. 

      The great thing about the temp office that I worked for was that it was the bottom

of the barrel; many of the employees were, like myself, hope-to-be-artists; We

didn't have the cleanest, most expensive clothes - but we dressed decently (aka

thrift store dandies), and hid our tattoos, nose rings and piercings well, under the

long sleeves of our shirts.  I maintained a haircut (self-inflicted) that was shaved

to 2-inches around the base of the head (the crest), while the hair on the top was

long and dyed black (if you know of the punk band the Misfits, the singer, Glenn

Danzig, wore a similar style which he termed the "Devil Lock.").  The hair on top

of my head was roughly 10-inches long and I occasionally, DREADINGLY, wore it in

a ponytail, a hairstyle I loathe, to placate the managerial department in more

conservative workspaces.

      Unfortunately, this was a more conservative location and it was requested that I

create a more pleasingly regular bodily surface landscape appearance.  I

strongly considered cutting all of my hair off in the work bathroom rather than

partake in the terrible ponytail ordeal. But for now, tied down, and tucked away.  

     My boss was a large redhead named Peggy who craved attention and gossip

the way a lawnmower craves grass.  My hazy gestimate of

the office work pool was that there were roughly 70 employees of which 35 were

temp workers to another 35 full-time employees.  The temp workers shared the

same timetable and workspace.  All things being equal, an office full of people

doing the same jobs working the same hours would be paid the same wages as

well as similar health insurance: Wrong. Incorrect. Not Really.

    We were paid less money to work the same hours and do the same job as our

"full-time" co-workers, a feat which could only make sense to the illogical mind

of a bookkeeper. .  and suffer if we couldn't pay for our own hospitalization if hurt during

our time working for our benefactor.... not so good.

For myself, who would probably be there for a month, or until I got bored of the

place and asked to be re-assigned, it wasn't much of a big deal.  But I had

co-workers who had worked for this company as temp workers for years, and

often times had been there longer than many of the newer full-time staff.  These

people, to my knowledge, weren't being given raises or being hired into the

regular staff pool. We were a third world sweatshop unto ourselves (though I

admit to some hyperbole in relation to this sentence -  it is not without a solid

skeleton of truth).

     My initial duties at the company occurred in a back mailroom type of space

where myself and three other employees would sift through a great mass of

returned mail from prospective new customers to whom the company had

randomly sent a potential credit cards.  Many envelopes were returned, at the company's

cost with the mangled pieces of plastic that had been rejected and introduced to the steely

force of sharp scissors.  Some envelopes were accompanied by very unpleasant saliva and

hair samples, as well as other materials not suitable for mention.  A thankless job

for people who would be thanked less. 

     There was a 60-year-old African-American woman, named Theresa, who worked

with myself and the others in the back room.  She was an amazing character

who would blast the local urban radio station, bopping along, working and listening

to some of the dirtiest songs of the day affectionately.

     From time to time there would be some sort of communal celebration at the office.

On one particular Friday, we were informed, that it was one of the worker's birthdays and

there was going to be cake for the workers.  I love cake.  I was very excited about this

lovely baked bonus until it was quickly announced that temp workers had to wait until all

of the full-time employees, who worked the same hours as us, had been served.  At this

point I viewed the cake as a symbol of the higher-ups quest to be unnecessarily

and unfairly controlling and hierarchical with absolutely no grounds to do so... but

I'd still eat the cake.

So we sat in the mailroom working and waiting for our full-time

brethren to go at the cake while we sorted through more obliterated tiny pieces

of Earth wrecking plastic - when sweet and crazy Theresa popped into our

sanctioned area with tears in her eyes.  

     Theresa had not known about the food chain of command and had joined the

FTer's in the sugar orgy. As she approached the multi-layered mouthwatering

temple, she was denied... mere inches away from sweet job-monotony-

obscuring-bliss... and she wept.  She was full of anger, hurt and sad confusion.

She had been kicked away like an excited and loving puppy who approached a

cruel, sadistic stranger who could not and would not appreciate decency out of

selfishness and thoughtlessness. I immediately felt,"The cake

means nothing to me, but to deny this proud and good older woman a piece of

crummy cake because she cut in the imaginary line was just plain dirty and

lousy."

     "I'm gonna piss on that cake!" I never thought I would hear these words coming

out of an elderly woman's mouth - nor anyone's mouth for that matter - but in a

sickly lit florescent world where control reigns supreme over pathos, this

exclamation was a sweet cry of defiance from a wounded soldier who had bowed

to a cruel commanding officer only to have their teeth knocked out for asking for

dignity.  All of us in the back room were blown away and sadistically delighted by

Theresa's exclamation of a terrible fluid revenge. I wondered strongly if this goal

would actually come to pass both recoiling and widening my eyes at the possible

reality of a such a deed.  In the end, there was so much cake that some of it was

later thrown away because everyone had had their fill.  Theresa and the rest of

use did eat the cake. But what had initially been offered to the workers as a

celebratory and kind gesture, was now something we

would merely stuff in our mouths until we set forth to working moments later.

Lines had been drawn and those barriers were to be respected. To what end, I

doubt anyone knows.

    After a week on the job I was moved up to a computer filing position; I logged

endless stacks of customer phone numbers and checked whether they were up to

date.  I could compare this position, if I were working a hundred years ago, to

dusting a sodium warehouse with a hand full of feathers.  The work got done in

the most grueling and disinterested manner possible. It was not a terrible

job, but it was terribly dull. It would take no more than a day for art to rear it's

opportunistic mind challenging/warping head. I had already been working on a few

short stories... now was my opportunity to make money writing... by doing so on

company time.  I often hear friends gripe about how working

at offices kills their spirit and their creative abilities: Bullshit. What people have to

embrace is one pure golden soul saving simple truth: it's not their office - IT'S

YOURS!  AND WHAT A FANTASTIC OFFICE YOU HAVE!!! It's filled will

complimentary long distance phone calls, ample gratis copies from the xeronk machine,

courtesy faxes, free-of-charge postage, and as many pens, pencils, rolls of tape, staplers,

envelopes and whatever seems to be laying around at your fingertips.  This is YOUR

office, make your time pleasant and worthwhile!

     When I entered my data entry position I had been rather incompetent as to the

workings of the computer but a co-worker soon taught me about, what remains to be

eight years later, a key device in sabotage at the work place - it's tiny, yellow, and so

simple that if you think about it for more than a split second your brain will consider

leaving your body in search of a better position: THE MINIMIZE BUTTON.  We have

had soo many amazing adventures together ever since, and I believe our beautiful

romance will continue throughout the ages.  Once I was taught about the minimize

button, I began working on my own writing throughout the tired workday and each

time one of the supervisors would stop on by or snoop on by... I would click that

fantastic button then pop up all of their data and get back to working on their

garbage... until they swooped away and I could safely recall my work on the screen.

Everything was going well, I was getting a lot of my own work done (with an almost

  acceptable wage), when one of the CEOs of my floor, who would pass me from time to

time, had the weekly bulletin passed out among the staffers. Included in this particular

bulletin was a very curious and rather pointed bit of interoffice policy:  No one may

wear ponytails in the workplace during regular work times.  

     Oh, I know what you're thinking... he's being paranoid, right?!!  One small problem: I

was the single only person in the whole office with a ponytail.  Again, I know what

you're thinking: Is this the end of the line for our anti-hero (of sorts)?!!!  Perhaps. If

you rewind back to the second paragraph of this writing, you will see, when looking at

the final lines, how much I hated my then current, at work, coiffure.  I

contemplated filing a complaint with my temp agency out of furious righteous

indignation and called them in relation to my intentions.  I was surprised to find that

my employer was siding with me and said they would wait for my action.  At the same

time, I was basically penniless and needed the job to make money.

     As I pondered my possibilities, a circle of candles, without extravagance, lit a clear

and simple path for this small shiny thought to enter my brain and take an immediate

leap: NO PONYTAIL?!! GOOD IDEA! I quickly took the rubber band, which pained me

in no small way, releasing it from it's circular grasp, and curled my long-dyed-blue-black

hair, behind my left ear to make myself look newly "presentable" to the improper

authorities. 

     "Oh well, It's been a good run." I thought as I continued working for myself in their

office with my hair even more, thankfully, freakish/outlandish than before. It won't be

long until I am served with a cubicle eviction notice, from the company, for this

action.  But time passed, as did higher authorities, and my worthless job was still mine

by day's end.  Victory? The boss had inadvertently brought a new and

larger weirdness to his sacred workplace and he couldn't issue a statement asking

employees not to put their hair behind their ears. 

Checkmate!

For now.

Thanks for this prompt.  Go for publication!

Attention reviewers: Please keep these guidelines in mind when choosing your star rating.

1. Does not fit this project.
 
2. Subject matter fits the project, but minimal attempt is made to follow submission guidelines.

3. Good story that could use a fair amount of editing.

4. Good story with only a few places here and there that could benefit from editing.

5. Perfect submission. Completely publishable with minimal or no editing.

Attention writers: Please let me know when and if you've revised your work.

I'm sorry I must decline my schedule is packed at the moment.