short work contracts suck

Finding a suitable first job is a huge problem for graduates, and when Carla found hers she then started worrying about whether it’s going to last more than six months.

"When you’re working in a volatile economy," says Carla, "you’re likely to worry so much that you soon start feeling 80 years old rather than 20. Living at home with my parents is a wonderful cushion for me right now, but I really want to be able to plan my life and have something to look forward to."

Carla agrees that lack of job security is a problem for all workers, not just young people, but she claims that it hits young people harder because without a glowing future to look forward to it’s easy to fall into depression or numb yourself with alcohol and drugs.

Carla’s parents are happy to provide her with a home for the rest of her life and don’t understand why she is so eager to achieve independence. They advise her not to worry so much, not to moan about the lack of permanent jobs and not to expect permanency to flow on from the job she has now. It is true, they say, that she may not be able to plan an independent life without job security, but nothing these days comes with a guarantee - even a permanent job.

Instead, Carla’s parents tell her to look at the shifting economic sands as providing opportunities for personal growth that people stuck in permanent jobs often sorely lack. Rather than one opportunity at the start of her life, that bogs her down forever, they tell Carla that she has a future full of hundreds of opportunities.

Unfortunately, the only opportunity Carla wants is an opportunity to leave home and strike out on her own. She’s angry that her generation doesn’t have the same job security that her parents had. They are in permanent jobs that they gained fresh from school and will be there until they retire!

"It’s very common," says Carla, "for people over 40 to be in the same job, or working for the same company, all of their working life. Finding someone in their 20s or 30s who can claim this distinction is rare. Permanent jobs either don’t exist any more, or if they do they are not in my field or not the type of job I want. Not even government jobs are guaranteed to be permanent these days."

A work contract of six months, with a renewable option, is a very good deal and this is what Carla has at present in her first job.

"Three months, with a renewable option," says Carla, "seems to be a standard work contract so I suppose I am lucky to have a longer tenure. Most of my friends are on short term contracts. Let’s face it, companies often don’t stay in business that long. Mergers, restructures and liquidations happen with alarming frequency and I accept that companies don’t want to take on the responsibility of offering staff permanent employment when they don’t know what the future holds."

Furthermore, she accepts that there are a lot more people in the employment pool nowadays than there are jobs available for them. Hiring contract staff is easy and cheap. Firing permanent staff is difficult and expensive.

Carla may not be able to plan her life with as much certainty as her parents did, but she is definitely going to have a lot more freedom, variety and opportunity in her working life than they did.

Her parents belong to the last generation, the Baby Boomers born 1946-1955, for which slapping a deposit down on a home and a car and paying them off in monthly installments was an achievable reality at the start of their working life.

Carla has friends who are heavily in debt with student loans, car repayments and credit card debt because they lost jobs they thought would last forever. Some of them were forced to sell at a loss their cars and personal goods such as PCs, telephones and sound systems.

"It’s heart breaking," says Carla, "and eBay is nothing more than a modern version of the old pawnshops of the 1930s depression years where jobless people forfeited their personal belongings for food money."

Although Carla is taking advantage of the job she has now to save up enough to be able to pay cash for personal goods so that she is not going to be burdened by debt when her job contract ends, she is never going to have enough money to buy a decent car and run it on her wages. And, as for an apartment of her own, forget it! Her parents console her with the fact that when they die she will inherit their apartment, but Carla is sickened by the prospect of living with her parents for the next forty years. She wants a place of her own, now!

Carla is trying very hard to buy the argument that trading permanency for freedom in the workplace is a good thing, and that she may as well embrace this fact of 21st century life and profit from it because that is the way things are and will be - unless, of course, a catastrophe wipes out half of the employment pool and she becomes a scarce commodity.

Yes, Carla accepts that without a permanent job she is, in effect, a free agent. She can determine when she wants to work and for how long. She can even register herself as a company and claim many expenses that she would not normally be able to claim in a permanent job. Her opportunities are limited only by her imagination!

Also, when she is older she will have no reason to lament, as her parents do: "I wish I had traveled, got involved in music or sport or (insert appropriate lament here) when I was young but I was too busy working, paying off a house, bringing up kids, etc".

Between the many jobs Carla is going to have over her working life, she will have a chance to indulge herself in all of those wonderful things that she may not be able to do when she is older. Her parents point out that she can use the precious leisure time she will be given over the years to excel at something she enjoys that might eventually earn her a better income than a regular job.

Unfortunately, Carla doesn’t harbor any secret desires to be a model, an athlete, an artist or anything else in particular. And the last thing she wants to do is go back to school.

"I am just an average girl who wants her independence and a place of her own," explains Carla, "and not having a secure job is preventing me from doing what I really want to do."

The other argument - that young people can now trade permanency for variety in the workplace - doesn’t wash with Carla either.

"It’s true," says Carla, "that when I go from job to job - for six months here and three months there - I’ll be learning a variety of skills that someone in a permanent job wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn in a lifetime. And it’s also true that I’ll be meeting a lot of people and making valuable contacts that may be useful one day should I ever wish to start a business of my own. But the fact is that being multi-skilled benefits employers more than it does me, and as for starting my own business - forget it!"

And the final argument - that contract workers escape the many annoyances and downright breaches of rights that permanent workers have to face - doesn’t make sense to Carla at all. She claims that contract workers have more, not less, misery at work than permanent workers.

"I would be willing to put up with anything, even less pay," says Carla, "if my employer offered me a permanent contract enabling me to plan my life!"

abominable conditions

Brandy is a single mom and an independent contract worker taking on various assignments throughout the year. She sees abominable conditions in some workplaces that make her glad she doesn't work there permanently.

"I choose to do contract work because I've never, ever come across a company that I'd like to work for as a permanent employee," explains Brandy, "and it also allows me plenty of time between jobs to be with my kids."

"I earn good money when I'm working," explains Brandy, "but I work like a slave for it and I couldn't do it 365 days a year like some poor women have to."

"Contract work has its downside," says Brandy, "but it’s ideal for single mothers because it pays well - giving you enough money to support yourself between jobs - and if you come across a really toxic job you don’t have to put up with it for long."

Brandy feels very sorry for women trapped in permanent jobs where the people or conditions are abominable.

"I do word processing," says Brandy, "and I'm often working in a team where one or more women are really suffering from the plague of word processors - eye strain."

"Even with hourly breaks to prevent eye strain, the strain of dealing with fine-print or highly detailed work takes its toll on word processors," says Brandy, "even on young eyes like mine."

"I've been in places where older women are practically blind because employers refuse to inject a bit of variety into their jobs to protect their eyesight, and they're too scared to complain fearing they'll get sacked."

Another problem for word processors is poor lighting. In one place where Brandy worked the lighting was so bad that she had to use two lamps on her desk in order to see what she was doing.

"As a result of the heat the lamps generated I was hot and bothered all day, and when I asked to be moved I ended up with a glare problem."

"Some workplaces are just not designed with adequate lighting, and some employers are so mean that they refuse to provide word processors with glare-proof monitors," says Brandy, "so I'm glad to get out of those places real fast."

Another problem Brandy has is working with really old files.

"You get to handle a lot of old files doing word processing and in one job I not only had to inhale the dust all day but I also had to put up with dust mites eating me to death," laughs Brandy.

"Also I had to cope with the fumes of document chemical treatments - to which I am highly allergic. I went home every night with red eyes, a runny nose and an allergic rash all over my arms. Talk about toxic jobs - that one was awful - and I felt so sorry for the women who are being literally poisoned at that job day in day out."

"Anyone working in museums, libraries, archival or records management situations or musty old law firms has to deal with this problem." explains Brandy. "My experience has taught me that there doesn't exist a dust-free environment wherever stacks of books or printed material abound."

Another place where Brandy worked had such abominable bathroom facilities that the local authorities closed the place down shortly after she left.

"There were only two toilets - one male, one female - for a staff of seven males and three females, and a countless number of visitors," explains Brandy, "and quite often the men had to use the women's bathroom. How's that for teamwork?"

"More disgusting, though," laughs Brandy, "was that the place had no provision for towels and replenishment of toilet tissue and soap. I wouldn't want to work in a place like that permanently."

Notwithstanding environmental work hazards, Brandy has also experienced psychological hazards.

"When you have small children at home you imagine you're not short of company," says Brandy, "but I once accepted a six-month contract working totally on my own and I nearly had a nervous breakdown. I refuse to work on long-term contracts now. A month at any place is quite enough!"

"At first it was bliss working alone - out of bitchy teamwork environments," says Brandy, "but as time wore on I became incredibly lonely and believe it or not but I started talking to myself. That shows you how stressed I was."

"It was bad enough not having anybody to discuss my work with," says Brandy, "but when you’re a single mother with young kids at home you really depend upon work to give you some adult conversation. Being in solitary confinement for eight hours a day with just the telephone for company was a really sad working experience."

A lot of government work is done on short-term contracts these days, and this presents Brandy with another sort of problem she would not want in a permanent job.

"Most contract jobs require me to sign a non-disclosure agreement," says Brandy, "but some government jobs are so secretive that they are scary. Imagine not being able to tell your friends and family what you do, where you work or how your day went?"

"Unless you enjoy living a cloak-and-dagger existence," Brandy laughs, "you really want to avoid accepting a job where the work is so secretive that you cannot tell family and friends what you are doing."

"I also hate jobs where I don't have enough work to do," says Brandy, "because what usually happens is that I end up being seconded to help someone else with their workload, thus putting me in an inferior position."

Normally, Brandy only likes to work for a month or so at any place, but she recently accepted a three-month assignment because it was a newly created job. It sounded interesting and she accepted it. Unfortunately, being given no job specification and told the job was special was merely a ploy to get poor Brandy to do a whole lot of duties that she would rather not do, and nobody else wanted to do them either!

"Even with a job specification some employers will insist that you change duties somewhere along the line," explains Brandy. "They can do this because a little clause at the bottom of your job specification says: 'other duties as required'."

"If I find myself filling-in for a receptionist who never returns from holiday or sick-leave - or if I am promised a good project that is given to someone else - I get wise and move on," laughs Brandy.

"It's really important at the start of a contract job to ensure that you're being employed as X and don't want ‘other duties as required’ to end up employing you as Y," says Brandy.

"One of the good things about doing contract work," explains Brandy, "is that you’re often given autonomous work and can get on with it without fuss. In my present assignment, however, I have to make daily decisions requiring an okay from the boss and he is never available!"

"When your boss or supervisor is inaccessible you are unable to do your job properly and misery sets in fast," says Brandy. "If you go ahead and make a decision on your own bat, you risk being slammed for taking initiative."

"I admit that as a contract worker I probably experience more stressful work situations in a year than someone in a permanent job experiences," says Brandy, "but to me it is far less stressful to experience a variety of stressful working situations than the same stressor day in day out - and besides which I get to take off loads of time between jobs to rest up."

"Also, guessing what my next problem is going to be at my next job has become a bit of a game," laughs Brandy. "It never ceases to amaze me how inventive employers can be when it comes to devising miserable or toxic conditions for their staff."

"I’ve never had a nice, stress-free job and I don't believe one exists," says Brandy, "and, let's face it, works sucks and I’d rather be home looking after my children."