And Samsams point that vagrants are not unemployable based on appearance is spot on. 

Not such a leap now is it?

I’m certain if you needed them you cold trot out many other details that were wholly relevant but not present in your post, like this one claim that he was handling food. I’ve never seen a Wal-Mart that sells unpackaged meat, but I’ve only been to Phoenix once, but hey if it’s so hot there they have to sell unpackaged meats licked by poorly dressed obese people, I guess that’s what ya gotta do to offer low low prices everyday.

If you don’t think it is wrong to have staff that do not work with the public fired because a particular customer is disgusted by their appearance due to a medical condition they suffer from, then you are in at least one respect a bad person in my book. 

You’re free to express your disgust when you encounter obese people, or sick people, or poorly dressed poor people, or even a combination thereof, but demanding that they be taken off the job at your say so based on those factors is way out of bounds despite your johnny come lately details to justify. 

If you didn’t ask the man if he was sick and needed medical attention, you were unjustified in demanding he be put off his job based on your assessment.

I think those contracts might have some teeth if you were a highly-sought software wizard or some other kind of…  I dunno, wizard or something.

But the former employer has to file suit to make it stick.  And not many of us are worth a few grand in lawyers’ fees.  Fact is, most of our employers wouldn’t even know if we went over to the competition…  or care.  It’s your superego that enforces the contract.

Everyone only wants temps… I need temps too!…

I’ve been counting on my high level of education to keep me out of the shittiest jobs, but I’m not sure how much it may count for at a temp agency.

I don’t know how my story came across that I was “repulsed”, it must have been my vividness. 

I guess I should be amazed how this segment of society WANTED to work, as opposed to the able-bodied who don’t want to work at all. I think what bothered me was that they HAD to work for so little, no benefits and for what, just to live paycheck to paycheck?Yes, it was a reality check for me, to see how people are REALLY struggling, but I need to be amazed too by their perseverance and will to survive. That’s what it was, I was walking through a building full of people working to simply survive, not just put a little extra cash in their pockets. Thanks the comment. 

Just because someone is at least 400lbs, wearing clothes much to small for them, and covered in oozing sores, doesn’t, by any means, imply they are “disabled or challenged”. Where’s your frame of reference coming from? Maybe it would be challenging for you to live like this. 

Maybe, just maybe, this person is a diabetic slob who has no interest in taking care of himself? No, I don’t want to look at someone who doesn’t want to take care of themselves, with oozing diabetic-like ulcers stocking the fucking meat counter! THAT”S why I was going to call 911, it’s illegal for him to work with food. Put him in the garden center!

It’s our military’s best kept secret. It’s slavery and there’s been rioting too. Some of the riots have been covered up as military incidents, like attacks from the locals, but it’s from the INSIDE. 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/06/110606fa_fact_stillman

Thank you Walmart for giving these people an exciting place to work along with protecting them from our evil streets and keeping them safe & dry.

Agencies normally used to expect some recompense for the lost income once a temp was taken on permanently. This used to be a certain number of months’ payment. Employers would also be expected to sign an agreement to pay the agency if they chose to directly employ an agency worker.
But this was thirty years ago now.

I have never heard of an agency preventing employment entirely until a certain period had elapsed.

I’m not the one hiding these people at 3a.m, it’s the people who employ them. The environment is very strange, weird, Orwellian, and actually fascinating. 

I shared this story with a women who lives next door. She had a great story of working at a place where all you needed was an I.D. She made cheap tiny American Flags, the kind on toothpicks. She described these same people along with one strange, and illegal business practice; a quota bonus of CIGARETTES, one pack an hour. 

So explain my story away all you want, even if you have to try and explain me away. Reality hurts, even for those like me who can put it all into words. I worked at a drop in center for a few years and drove a city bus for five, I can spot an American Street Urchin a mile away along with that unique smell of someone who sleeps on dirt & cardboard underneath an overpass.

I am currently a new hire for this company, but my coworkers are underpaid and underappreciated. The manager of the department let me know that everybody I work with are idiots. They make a touch above minimum wage, receive no insurance, no pension/401k options, and just hate the job.  The department I work in is a total mess and without the current employees receiving better pay or the temp agency being resourceful enough to find people willing to bend over backward for a company that offers them no security and no loyalty, the system will never change.

To be honest, I kind of hate myself for being a part of it.

Do we want future generations to be born only to be chewed up and treated like shit? Is there any moral rule that says we have to live this way? This discussion needs to happen.

I’d say, my entire adult life (I’m 29 now) has been one “recession” after another.  I hear people talk about long term careers, company loyalty and all that but I’ve never seen it work out that way. Employers use employees as long as its profitable for them to do so, when it’s not profitable, you’re out of a job, that’s how the game works. The reality is that no job is “safe”, no position is “secure”. When you say that it’s not a replacement for “real employment”, which I take as a job that feels “more right” as the better bet, I totally agree, those are the jobs you should stay with longer. I just don’t believe that holding out
for some ideal job with the right benefits are the answer. 

The only thing that you can legitimately count on in any job market is your ability to engineer this exploitative and parasitic system we live in to swing in our favour when we need it. I’d argue the same could be said about the banking and credit industry as well.

I think that everyone needs to be a bit of an opportunist at heart. To me, that means engineering opportunities for yourself, creating options. I believe people are at their most desperate when they feel like they’re out of options, when they feel “stuck” in a situation they can’t fight or flee.

I really despised temping truthfully, I had bad experiences with a myriad of companies I wound up working for. Yes, they were largely office positions, but it got me exposure to work one on one with a number of people who became springboards for small business ventures, longer term employment, and other experiences I wouldn’t have had just hitting up interviews. Did a lot of those ventures work out? Hell to the no! But they’re all worth the effort.

My point was largely that this particular exploitative system is one that, used in such a way, can offer you a launching pad for more options and control. 

Also… don’t get sick, unless your family or something, anyone will ditch a temp on the spot, makes you look too risky.

There’s a reason low skill minimum wage jobs pay low wages. They dont require the employee to bring much at all to the table. If it does require more skills, it very quickly becomes more important for the employer to get someone who has additional skill and thus would be worth the further expense. Employers who dont make that leap and continue to use temp workers in more skilled, necessary positions may enjoy a short-term savings, but they get crappy results and longer term it’s just bad business. Most who try that will end up paying a heavier financial price in some way. 

But I dont see a whole lot of examples in the article for those types of more skilled jobs… Other than the obvious examples of illegal behavior, like screwing them out of actual wage time…  I dont see the “exploitation”.