The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, August 22 - Unauthorized ...

The Slacker Temp
• Killers Among Us
• Camping Lessons
• It Isn't Easy Being Green
• Unreal Estate
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
THE ETHICIST BY RANDY COHEN
The Slacker Temp
• The Slacker Temp
• Plainspeak
• What They Were Thinking
I have been placed in charge of a data-entry temp whose work is
very shoddy. I don't want to complain about him — who should
be expected to do a good job of mindless work for low pay? But
I worry that his performance is sabotaging me and my
colleagues. What should I do?
— Jon Lackman, New York
s you rightly suggest, running to the boss
should be a last resort. The person to talk to
first is the temp: make sure he knows what
is expected of him and what the consequences
will be if he doesn't deliver.
But few people eagerly work well in bad jobs.
Indeed, if anyone's acting unethically here, it's
your boss; it is ignoble to force people into
soul-deadening, pointless, poorly paid jobs. And it is force -- people must work to
live, and surely no one would freely choose to waste his days in such
circumstances.
Organizing work into tedious, repetitive tasks, while profitable for the few, makes
life miserable for the many; some political economists have called it a crime
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/19990822mag-ethicist.html (1 of 3) [8/22/1999 9:15:21 PM]
White Oleander
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The Testament
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Business @ the Speed of
Thought
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Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
by Richard Carlson, Ph.D.