Yeah, so this is a little awkward -- and disturbing

My current project is not located at the firm or at the agency. We are in rented space at one of those companies that rents out temporary office space. While many people view people using temporary office space renters are losers who don't really have a business, it is worth noting that, by renting office space and striking out on their own, these people already have shown more initiative and ambition than pretty much every contract attorney on the face of the planet. Many of them are budding entrepeneurs. But I digress.

What I actually am getting at is how much these people otherwise are so much like temps, and how much the environment in which we works fits perfectly with Temp Town. For instance, on Thursday and Friday of this week, anyone whose olfactory senses had not been destroyed by the stench of Temp Town or sniffing glue could detect a faint scent of poo in the atrium of the building in which we are working. Upon entering the lobby of the tower of the building in which we are working, it became clear that the whiff of poo was really, really strong. In fact, I was not the only person who was pretty sure someone had shit in the elevator lobby. And please, considering history in Temp Town, the possibility was not outlandish. And the smell was unmistakable: it was poo.

Sure, my natural inclination was to blame it on a Temp, even if a homeless person sneaking into the building was a more likely suspect. However, another guy on the project may have found an even more likely suspect.

As you know, I never identify people by name -- I assign nicknames. The temp who has served up a more likely suspect presents problems for me. He seems like a nice guy: intelligent, easy to get along with, possessed of social skills -- in other words, not like most temps. Nonetheless, he has a beard that makes it look like he is on the short list to be the bass player for ZZTopp, and a haircut that makes it clear that he is either seriously gay or a rampaging urban hipster who needs to be put out of my misery. He is neither, so I give his account of a likely suspect high credibility. For lack of a better name, I shall refer to him as "Freak Show," even though I am sure a better nickname applies. But, once again, I digress.

Friday morning, Freak Show -- who always is first to arrive at the office, at least among those people working in our room -- got to work, opened our office, then went to the bathroom, where he found another tenant -- not a temp on our project, but apparently someone else also renting office space -- taking what can best be termed a "hobo bath." In my experience, this includes bathing as best you can by splashing yourself with water from the bathroom sink, usually targeting the armpits. That isn't what was happening, or at least not exactly.

This guy apparently was splashing himself with water from a toilet. In his defense, he was targeting his armpits for this hobo bath and, granted, the toilet appeared to be freshly flushed and not full of poo or anything, but it still was a toilet. Used dozens of times a day by God knows how many temps and other tenants of this office space. Yet there he was, dipping water from the toilet and semi-bathing with it. Needless to say, the encounter was just a bit awkward.

We had already speculated that this particular individual was actually living in the office space he was renting. His office space smells like a landfill. This tends to support the theory that he both lives in his office space and that he took a poo in the lobby. More concerning, though, is this: Is it possible we have found someone even more socially undesirable than a temp? Do we want to accept that such a thing is even possible?

Naturally, we assume that, if this person is, in fact, more socially undesirable than a temp, he clearly is a leading suspect as the guy who made the elevator lobby smell like poo. Hard to believe we might have found someone more likely to have taken a dump in the elevator lobby than would be a temp. A little scary, really.

It's like deja vu all over again

About a year ago, I started a project that was as good for blog material as I've had in many a year. Unfortunately, I had to lay off because there was someone on the project who was trying to get me fired for blogging about the project. I think that risk is gone this time, as the project has, phoenix-like, come back from the dead. Same stuff, same case, just a different time. So here we are, seeing a lot of familiar faces. Doc Brown is here:

As is Wolfman Jack:

Alas, many of my favorites from last year are not here. On the other hand, the agency added a bunch of people today, so maybe some more oldies but goodies will be back. Certainly the same wonderful emails are back. But more on that later. It's just like old times, blogging about Temp Town again!

Yes, this is a real sign

Unfortunately, in Temp Town, this is the kind of sign that actually is necessary. It ranks up there with "Please Don't Eat Other People's Food." This stuff happens all the time, on every project, because temps are animals, and so we get signs like this:

I wish this were the worst thing that happens on projects in Temp Town. It isn't. I get it, it happens in the real world, too, but not so often that building management feels the need to put up a sign. I'm still waiting for a sign in the bathroom that says, "Please do not take a dump on the floor. Use the toilet." Three projects and counting that needed that sign, and one of them was this year. Never underestimate how low temps will sink when it comes to failure to observe socially acceptable norms.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

This might be a new project, but the things we are being ragged about are the same old shit we hear about on every project. Does any of this sound familiar? Yeah, I think so:

I am writing to everyone to address a few housekeeping items, PLEASE READ these as I would like to not have to police the group or send multiple emails regarding these topics throughout the project as it gets repetitive, nagging and exhausting.
REMINDER:: You are in a SHARED workspace.
Refrain from doing the following (to ease any olfactory distress of your coworkers):
Spraying any sort of smelling products into the air within the workspace (use the restroom or outside)
Wearing excessive perfume/cologne (remember, everyone may not have the same sensory enjoyment as you)
Cooking malodorous foods in our shared kitchen
Eating malodorous foods at the desk
Taking your shoes off at your desk
Please also note that, since this is a shared work space, keep your conversations to a low tone and minimum within the space, as it can get distracting for the people around you.
Should you need to take a phone call, DO NOT take calls in the hallway or lobby outside the suite. This disrupts the other businesses that we share a floor with. Please step outside the building to make calls. Thank you.
Be completely cognizant of your surroundings, please keep the personal items on your desk within YOUR personal space—please be spatially aware when you are expanding into your neighbor’s space as it is not conducive to a tension-free working environment for the whole.
Lastly, and this SHOULD BE common sense, but it has been requested to review the dress code requirements to the space. I know it is getting warm, but PLEASE adhere to the dress code set forth in our TPI Handbook. You all received this handbook with your onboarding email. For your reference, should you need it, please refer to Page 22 on the section titled “Personal Appearance.”
Thank you for reading this ENTIRE message all the way through.

Yes, I provided the entire email, because I think it is informative.I think I have received an email like this on pretty much every project I've ever been on. These are the things people complain about, and these are the things that people keep doing regardless of how much people complain or agencies tell them not to do these things. The people doing these things don't fucking care if they are offending other people, or pissing people off, or whatever. It's part of why they are in Temp Town. They have no clue that what they are doing makes other people unhappy. Which is why these emails have no effect.

Maybe Temp Town is a rodeo

Almost since the beginning of this blog, I have compared the life of a document review project to fishing for swordfish, where the swordfish starts out strong but  eventually weakens and is brought aboard the fishing boat and dies -- the end of the project.

Well, I think I have a new analogy that describes not the life cycle of a document review project but the process of a document review project. It is, I think, considerably less flattering than the swordfish analogy.

Every document review is a rodeo. As any rodeo fan knows, most rodeos start off with children attempting to ride sheep. In Temp Town, the sheep are the temps, dutifully going wherever they are told while constantly trying to put one over on their masters. I'm pretty sure the children are the agency's project managers "supervising" the temps. They don't really know any more than the temps, they were temps themselves yesterday and will be again tomorrow:

Next up we have the rodeo clowns, who are, of course, the staff attorneys from the firm who are there to provide guidance to the temps and project managers. They also are not told anything by the people who actually know what is going on, so their guidance is of suspect value. Many of them are people with no real connection to the case who need some billable hours and have nothing else to do. Most of them also were temps yesterday and will be temps again tomorrow, and consequently know fuck all about privilege, which is what they most often are there on which to provide guidance.

The broncos and the bulls are the government, proving impossible to ride and unpredictable:

You know what you won't see at a Temp Town rodeo? Cowboys. Cowboys are the heroes of the rodeo, and  Temp Town rodeo has no heroes. There are no cowboys, and, more important, no audience. No one is watching this shit. No one cares. And yet, they're still selling tickets, because the firms, agencies and clients involved all stand to make a metric shit ton of money. They care a lot. No one else does, least of all the people no the ground floor taking part in the rodeo.

Only in Temp Town. Or at least I hope so.

New project is every bit as interesting as I thought it would be, at least substantively. Which means, of course, not at all. However, Temp Town is finally providing me with some interesting characters again. I shall call this one "Wolf Boy."

I think this guy has watched too many X-Men movies. There is no question in my mind he has Hugh Jackman posters on his bedroom wall, and yes, I used the plural -- posters. This dude has mutton chops facial hair like no one has ever seen outside of a Civil War photograph. It looks like he had a neck beard -- yeah, these bad boys go all the way down to the Adam's apple -- and then he slipped shaving his chin, wound up cutting a racing stripe down the middle of his chin and neck and decided to go with it. The chops are separated in the middle by a stripe of shaven skin that is a single razor-width. Truly remarkable.

I desperately want to mock him live, in real time, but part of me is afraid he might pop out some Wolverine-like claws and cut me to ribbons.

I suppose I owe an explanation

I haven't been posting much late. Frankly, I've been too tired most nights, but it also is a direct result of this job being really boring. There are no real pyrotechnics or great Temp Town behavior to write about. Dullsville, kids. Since that is supposedly the theme of the blog, I have been hard-put to find post material. I hate to just load up with kitties, military stuff and politics. On the other hand, with no Temp Town material to speak of, not sure what else to do. I guess you'll see what happens, right? Thanks for hanging in there.

Stealth kitty

Cpl. Wolves came by the other day, and naturally he spent some time snuggling with his animals. Here he is with Sadie the Ball-Warming Dog and Mischief:

I'm sorry, whose disembodied tail is that in the picture above? Yeah, she stuck her head out a little later -- it was Murder, who didn't want to be left out:

Mrs. Wolves has given me a bazillion kitty pictures in the last day or two. I'll probably be posting a lot of them because I haven't been posting much lately and cheap posts are better than none. I haven't been posting much lately because Temp Town is giving me no material, and I am in a quandary about how much I should just give up on Temp Town as a source of blog material. I'll let you know how that internal argument comes out. In the meantime, enjoy the kitty posts.

When it rains, it pours

Just a few days ago, I was wondering when I would ever work again. Today, I find myself turning down projects. My "2-3 day" project let us know today that it would be going another 2-3 weeks. Naturally, before getting this word, I had already accepted another project, also expected to go 2-3 weeks, that has up to 20 hours of overtime. Naturally, I went with that, since I believed I was about to be unemployed again. Instead, I find myself turning down work. Temp Town is a fucked up place.

Nothing good can come of this; Update!

Got an email yesterday from The Posse List (it's a free listserve that posts jobs for contract attorneys and occasional news about the industry -- I've mentioned it a lot before but will not link to those posts. Suffice to say every contract attorney subscribes) about a legal case that absolutely fucks contract attorneys with respect to overtime. Frankly, the whole thing makes me want to track down the plaintiff and beat his ass. Dude may have single-handedly killed time-and-a-half for overtime in document review work.  While the decision is by a federal district court and is binding only in that district, it reinforces the trend that is seeing many firms already paying straight time for work over 40 hours -- no overtime bump. Firms and agencies might have been waiting to see if temps would settle for being fucked out of overtime in exchange for still working, but this dickwad gave them legal precedence:

In a case that helps clarify what discovery-related activities constitute the practice of law, a federal judge in Manhattan has told a group of contract attorneys performing document review for a major law firm they are not entitled to overtime pay because they were engaged in legal work.
Summoning professional and ethical codes of North Carolina, where the attorneys worked, Judge Richard Sullivan determined that document review rises to the level of legal practice — irrespective of its complexity or the legal credentials of those performing it. The application of legal judgment, Judge Sullivan said, is not a prerequisite for an activity to be deemed “practice of law.”
The September 16 ruling comes in a collective action brought by David Lola against Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, and Tower Legal Staffing under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In dismissing the suit, Judge Sullivan could precipitate the failure of similar challenges by other groups of contract attorneys suing for overtime. Document review, the menial form that requires only tagging materials for responsiveness if they include certain predetermined keywords, is not legal work, they contend.

This fuckwad made the stupidest argument you can make: that law firms hire people with law degrees to make decisions that a fucking chimp could make:

Lola sued Skadden and Tower Legal Staffing in July 2013 arising from work he performed for Tower over the course of 15 months as a contract attorney in North Carolina. Although Lola is a licensed attorney in California, he is not licensed to practice in North Carolina or the Northern District of Ohio, where litigation involving a Skadden client necessitated the review work.

Lola performed elementary review that consisted entirely of identifying search terms appearing in documents, marking those documents for responsiveness, and, occasionally, redacting materials according to protocols Tower and Skadden provided. He earned $25 per hour working 45 to 55-hour weeks. His fellow contract attorneys received similar wages, with no hike in pay for hours worked in excess of 40 per week.

Document review is not rocket science. It isn't even high school biology. It's pretty fucking easy. However, it still involves, at least theoretically, legal judgement. Sure, most temps don't actually exercise legal judgement -- and I think we know now where Mr. Lola falls on that scale -- but no one should ever be doing this work under the standard that Lola seems to have applied -- "I see a search term, the document is reponsive." The seach terms are broad and drag in many documents that are junk. The job actually requires that you understand what the document requests -- whether they are issued by the government, such as in the case I am working on, or by a private party in litigation, such as seems to have been the case for Mr. Lola -- are looking for and mark the documents accordingly. Anyone who argues that this requires no legal judgment is 1) a fool who doesn't understand what legal judgment involves and b) a fool who wants his job to be given to a high-school dropout because no legal judgment is involved and therefore the firms don't need to spend extra money hiring somebody with a law degree.

I've posted about a similar suit before, but this is the first I've heard of one of these suits reaching a decision. Naturally, this decision can be appealed, but I have to believe the plaintiff isn't rich and might not be able to convince his lawyers to continue this dumbass quest. [Update: The same lawyers are involved in both cases, so they might have an agenda that encourages them to pursue this further, regardless of the plaintiff's financial status.] Also, I would sure hate to get an appellate court decision on this that would be binding in even more states. Right now, the decision might only be binding in North Carolina (where the work was being done) and maybe New York (where the suit was filed). Don't want to see that expanded by a lost appeal. I would like to assume that this guy is a lawyer and thus smart enough to realize when he is getting his ass kicked in court, but I have no evidence to support that theory. So there's that.

So what we have here is a guy who never read the Federal Labor Standards Act, which makes it pretty clear that folks who do jobs that require professional judgment are exempt from overtime standards. Attorneys fall into that category. To argue that temp attorneys aren't exempt from overtime laws is to argue that firms don't have to hire temp attorneys, they can hire anybody. Stupid argument, unless you are so tired of Temp Town that you are willing to kill it completely to get out. Wouldn't it be better to just get a job somewhere else? Really.

So is this decision all bad? No. It might make it easier to get out of Temp Town, but not because Big Law will look at temps resumes and say, "Hey, this guy has been doing document review as a temp. That's the practice of law -- let's hire him!" It could be helpful for a temp who wants to move away from here, though. Say you have a temp who started temp work right out of law school, does that for five years here then decides to go back to whereever.  Most state bars will allow a lawyer to waive into the bar without taking that state's bar exam by paying a fee if the lawyer has been practicing law for a certain number of years (depending on the state). Now, at least, a temp can point to a court decision that says, yeah, this guy has been pracdticing law.

Mostly, though, this is probably bad for temps, at least with respect to overtime pay. I suspect more and more firms will offer straight time -- no time-and-a-half -- for projects that call for more than 40 hours per week. Maybe that will result in more projects that offer more than 40 hours per week -- a big problem in recent years has been that so many projects are capped at 40 hours, which is no way to make a living. Maybe it will result in a higher base rate. I wouldn't bet on either of those outcomes, though. I suspect that most projects will still be capped at 40 hours, and those that aren't will be much less lucrative.

I think I know how temp agencies will survive Obamacare, and you won't like it

We have discussed repeatedly at this site whether the mandates imposed by Obamacare on firms that employ more than 50 full-time employees are going to fuck temp agencies and, by extension, temps, such as here and here and here. The thinking at the time was that temp agencies would have to either have to limit temps to 29 hours a week -- not a viable option, really -- or turn us into Form 1099 independent contractors -- a pain in the ass for temps and a legally dubious move on the part of temp agencies, given the IRS rules on 1099 contractors. Turns out there is a cheaper, viable solution that I think temp agencies will employ. Problem, of course, is it sucks for temps. But then, Obamacare sucks all around, so why should this be different. Let's face it, life in Temp Town sucks, so why should this be any different?

In any event, I believe my fears regarding the demise of the temp industry were misplaced. There is, within this clusterfuck of a law, a way for employers to offer their employees a cheap, qualifying plan that allows them to avoid the penalties they might otherwise incur for not offering their employees suitable health insurance. It is, of course, a plan that no one would actually want in a free-market kind of atmosphere, but let's not get carried away here. We now live in the world of government-mandated health insurance, so it should come as no surprise to learn that the temp employer's saviour is neither insurance nor likely to foster good health.

Behold, I give you the "skinny plan."  Trust me, this is not insurance you would buy in the real world:

ObamaCare's individual mandate is supposed to nudge healthy workers to buy comprehensive coverage, either out of a sense of propriety or thrift — not wanting to throw away money to pay a tax penalty.

But a new, low-priced health plan developed by insurers to cover run-of-the-mill medical costs — but not hospitalization or surgery — would let workers dodge the penalty and leave them with a clear conscience.

What most young, single people want in the way of health insurance is catastrophic coverage: low-cost, high-deductible insurance that leaves routine health care costs to the insured -- doctor visits, routine prescription costs that fall below the deductible amount -- while covering big costs, like hospitalization or major injuries that send the insured to the emergency room. For most people, this makes sense. It's like owning a car: you don't want your insurance to cover your oil changes and tire rotations, but you sure as hell want your insurance to pony up for accident damage.

Well, these skinny plans do the opposite. They're like buying auto insurance that covers inspection costs, oil changes and tire rotations, but is nowhere to be found when an accident happens. All the plans do is "help defray the cost of up to six visits to the doctor, x-rays, generic drugs and preventative care, the Wall Street Journal reported." This is, to use a term of art, fucking worthless as health insurance goes. But Obamacare has essentially outlawed buying the kind of catastrophic insurance that everybody except old people want, so this is probably what Temp Town is going to get.

In any event, these skinny plans are likely to cost only about $50 per month, so temp agencies probably will go with this. It makes sense for them, even if the coverage is worthless to temps. Seriously, if you don't get hurt or really sick, do you spend $600 a year on routine health care, like normal doctor visits and prescriptions? Most people don't. And this is just individual coverage, people. Your family is fucked. If you are healthy, it makes more sense to eat the penalty for not buying insurance -- it's only $95 or 1% of income in 2014, $325 or 2% of income in 2015, and $695 or 2.5% of wages in 2016 and thereafter. Of course, the IRS can only collect the penalty by withholding your tax refund, so, if you do your withholding so you have no refund, then you pay no penalty.

In the end, the skinny plans are not like insurance at all. They're like a pre-paid maintenance plan. Insurance is designed to cover extraordinary costs from unusual events, like when you get hit by a bus and have lots of hospital expenses. The skinny plans don't cover that, but they'll pay for lots of doctor visits. Let's face it, most people don't go to the doctor every other month. So who the fuck wants to pay for coverage that only covers that crap? Stupid.

On the up side, skinny coverage gives temp agencies a way to stay in business. So smile -- you get to keep clicking. Which, I guess, is kind of like telling galley slaves they can keep pulling that oar. Sorry, kids, that's the best I've got.

Now there's ambition

Just heard an amusing Temp Town story. A guy I've worked with a number of times over the years told me about a project he was on several years ago. He got a call from the agency rep, who told him to get everybody together because she was coming over to "bless them out." The source of her dissatisfaction, apparently, is lost in the mists of time.

 

True to her word, she came over and blessed them out, finishing with, "If I have to hire somebody to sit here and watch over you like a babysitter, then I will."

 

The room was silent for a moment, and then a contract attorney asked, "So, how much would that job pay?"

Gotta admire the drive there.

Exit strategies?

For the first time since I have been doing this kind of work, I am hearing people talk about exit strategies. I don't mean finding another law job -- people always talk about that. In the past, though, people were willing to keep working in Temp Town because the money was good. But that was when the rate was $5 an hour higher than it is now, and 60-hour projects were the norm. There weren't any jobs short of associate at a big firm that paid that much, and nobody in Temp Town was landing an associate job. They either already had and for whatever reason lost it, or they never were going to land one. Sorry, hard fact, end of story. So, good money, low stress, lots of work, what's not to like?

Two of those three elements have largely disappeared. The money is no longer good -- a 15 percent drop in base pay is not part of the roadmap to prosperity. Neither is the complete disappearance of overtime, which is what always made this work lucrative to begin with. Occasionally projects will offer 10 hours of overtime, but it is becoming increasingly rare. The old days, when projects with 80, 90 or 100 hours a week were not common but nowhere near unheard of, are gone. So now what?

Well, people are talking about getting out. They're not sure where they would go or what they would do, but most are talking about leaving the area and leaving the legal profession (to the extent Temp Town actually is part of the legal profession.)

I think that might be premature, but it is hard to fault people for thinking that way. I plan to hang in for a few months, as I believe that there will be a lot more merger activity if Obama is not re-elected. Four years ago, I thought that merger activity would drop off, but be replaced by federal investigations of varying sorts. Alas, Barry's boys never really demonstrated the competence to generate investuigations in the volume that would keep our industry going. Spare me the ideological arguments, the cold facts are these: merger activity died, and investigations did not replace mergers as the prime source of work.

I think mergers will make a comeback if Romney wins, but I know a lot of people are not betting on it. The new business model seems to be more bodies, fewer hours. I recently was offered a project and when I asked about the hours, the response was, "Are you kidding? Nobody pays overtime anymore."

That's not quite true, but it's close enough. The question, then, is this: Will overtime as a routine matter ever return? I don't know.

Was that their first clue?

As I started my new gig today, got an email from a friend and sometime-coworker, who is on a project with a bunch of very young temps, just out of law school and, apparently, from privileged backgrounds (meaning parents paid for law school). They wonder why she's so "bitter" and apparently spend all their time at work "looking for 1) jobs and 2) shoes." Anyway, my friend wrote:

I finally got around to sharing your blogs to my kids here. They said that it depressed them and they stopped reading.

My immediate reaction (and response) was this:

The blog depressed them and the job doesn't? Go figure.

These people apparently are not paying attention.