Cannibalism rears its ugly head

It's inevitable. As a project reaches end days and the pressure mounts  -- They push the temps to hurry up and finish, we speculate endlessly about when the swordfish will finally gasp its last and leave us unemployed -- sooner or later, a temp will turn on his own. It is never pretty.

Tonight was that night. All day, we mindlessly coded some document on a stunningly simple issue on which we were given essentially one choice on how to code. With almost all thought removed from the equation, we were pushed to move ever-faster. Bruce Lee, the head enforcer for Them, went around in the morning informing temps that they needed to "step it up." Death, another enforcer, made no appearance -- apparently, no one was in need of a visit from Death. But I digress.

Late in the day, the mission changed for some of us. We were put to work on another group of documents that needed to be finished by the end of the day. At first, no problem, but as our review progressed into the evening, the system began to slow and the review pace dragged to a crawl.

I'm not sure how to make clear how maddening this kind of thing is. You click the appropriate coding on a document, click "Save and Next" to move to the next document, then go paint a replica of the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling waiting for the system to actually make the move to the next document. Or you could just fall asleep waiting for the next document. Regardless, it does not make for rapid review, which They were pressing for.

At about 8:30 pm, the cannibalism finally occurred. The team leader from the next room -- each room in the review center has at least one team leader who is supposed to pass on the wishes and orders of Them, except of course when They wish to crack the whip in person -- came in and told us to speed up because these documents had to be completed tonight.

"I know the network has been slow, but you can't blame the network. I've finished four batches. I can't use the network as a defense for you when I've finished four batches," said Studley McSupertemp.

So there it was. We had just been called slackers by a fellow temp because he was catching flack from Them and HE had completed four batches. As it turned out, he meant "finished" quite literally -- at least some of his batches were begun by people who left without completing them. Not only did this mean he hadn't done all the documents in all of the batches, it also meant some of the temps in his room had already bailed. Yet here he was, jacking us up and letting us know he couldn't defend us. Apparently, we would have been less blameworthy had we simply left earlier. (And as we discovered minutes later, we apparently also were more blameworthy than the members of his team who were in the internet lounge, splayed out in the comfy chairs there, SLEEPING! But I digress yet again.) Oddly, he was not knocked flat by the force of everyone in the room thinking simultaneously, "Fuck you, yes we can blame the network!"

Studley McSupertemp then left in time to miss the chorus of mutters of "kiss my ass" and the final crash of the network. Once everyone was able to log back in, the pace was back to normal. This is a frequent pattern when the client is too cheap to purchase sufficient server capacity for the review network. The system gets slower and slower, explodes, then is OK again for a while. Repeat as necessary.

We expect Bruce Lee to come around and berate us. After all, we are prepared for Them to treat us like unreliable first-graders. It's part of the game and doesn't bother us. We don't respect Them, either. But at least they stab us in the front.  When one of our own acts like Them, even for a moment, it's a stab in the back.