Microsoul, Part One:
A Former Permatemp Speaks
by guest columnist Weirdo U. Wanago-Toady
“Vice is a moster so frightful to mein
that but to be seen is to dispise
yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
-Alexander Pope
Moral Essays on Man
I HAVE TO CONCENTRATE on decommodification of the human soul.
I quit my permatemp job at Microsoft after one year of self-commodification.That’s when you view yourself as a commodity, something to be bought and sold. (I got it from Walter Benjamin, a Frankfurt School member who had to flee Nazi Germany).
Through a series of bizarre events I just left Microsoft one day. I just walked out and kept on walking.
Here is what I wrote when I finished my walk that fateful day:
Dear Microsoft,
I have been here one year now, gotten a raise, gained 40 completely unnecessary pounds, and stopped having sex, strangely enough.
I have become a slave to my work; neglecting myself, my loves, my passions, all for the shallow victory of releasing a product.
I have sacrificed my soul for a latte card (you know, the ones that you hand us when we work a 60-hour week, that are only redeemable at Microsoft cafes).
No matter how ridiculously funny that sounds, it is happening to everyone here.
Selling out is the modis operandi of this company. People brag about 90-hour work weeks.
It’s A Christmas Carol gone awry. Scrooge, instead of insisting Bob Cratchet work Christmas Day, brainwashes him into wanting to work Christmas Day.
It’s the “Microsoft Lifestyle”(TM). Overtime is not compulsory (that would be illegal); but work overtime or else.
I worked 60-hour weeks during the last phases of our product release. It didn’t even show up in my “Review.” Why would it? It’s the norm. I’m supposed to brag about it, be proud of it, like everyone else.
Let me tell you why I’m not proud. I have sacrificed myself for a company that won’t even offer its temps sick pay. And this is something the temps themselves agree with!
How do I explain the temps’ feeling this way? How can I explain the my slow descent into the catatonic agreement of a Microsoftie?
I can give the example of the latte cards: At first when you get one, you look at your boss like he’s an idiot. “Um, oh, thanks,” you might say, just to be polite. (I would have to work five minutes to pay for this latte down in the cafeteria).
Then you start noticing some people get more latte cards than others. Some would even hoard them; a stack of unused latte cards on a desk–now THAT was status.
Then, when I could, I started keeping a noticable pile of two latte cards on my desk. Envious co-workers’ eyes would dart from them to my computer screen as I performed yet another show-stopping feat.
Then the day came when I didn’t get a latte card: I bust my butt, I worked overtime, I gained the standard two extra pounds that week. and I didn’t get a latte card! I was thrown into a deep dark impenetrable depression.
Then I awoke.
“What?” I thought. “This had been a driving force in my life?”
I had been commodified.
I also found myself ignoring the total inequality that pervades the entire system. There is no such thing as equal pay for equal work in this illusionary world. And where are the black people? Where are the women? Where are the people over 40? Where is the ability to organize?
Ask anyone these questions at Microsoft and they’ll talk to you for an hour about how Microsoft is, well, different… special, you know.
No, I don’t know. Why is everyone here a young white male, Bill?
I realize I am leaving a church of some sorts. Microsoft is a religion to its workers. The blind loyalty to an obviously inferior product, the “rebellion” the workers seem to find in absolute conformity, fits a born-again Christian ideology. Redemption through Christ Gates. Bill is the infallible one.
I found, when I worked at Microsoft, it was pretty simple to figure out which side people where on before they even opened their mouths.
It’s a never-never land of agreement about how wonderful Bill is, and how horrible the government is for trying to interfere with something as sacred as capital gains. How could the creation of more millionaires be wrong?
And if you take this to its full conclusion, it’s eventually going to lead you to the idea that money really is a justification in itself. Money is salvation. Money is your reputation. If you’re a millionaire; who can put you down?
No one looks beyond the money, or asks question about how the money was made. Were products copied from other companies? Were unfair labor practices involved? Why is the government suing us again?
Since money is redemption, then all else is silly, idle chatter. At least it is to a Microsoftie.
These people take Microsoft’s side in EVERY court case.
Doesn’t anyone read the paper, you ask? Ask around and you’ll see the workers feel freedom of the press has gone a little too far. The papers are just full of anti-capitalist propoganda. The government is jealous of Microsoft’s wealth.
I ask, “What is so horrible about giving temps benefits?” and I find that even the temps here are on Microsoft’s side. “No, I won’t talk about my salary, the corporation doesn’t like it.” In fact, a huge amount of temps decided not to file for their retroactive stock benefits after a big court case win in 1999. It would be like losing their religion.
Then there is The Review, where aspects of my personality are scrutinized by people who don’t even know what personality is.
TOMORROW: Some more of this.
IN OTHER NEWS: The Providence hospitals in Seattle are merging with the Swedish Hospital circuit; ending the nun-managed Providence’s status as the largest women-owned company in Washington.
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