I was never employed at Fry’s, but regularly shopped at the Oregon and Washington stores, and to this day I always remember thinking that the employees looked more bedraggled than at any other store I had or have ever shopped at. There was a feeling of defeat, abuse, and under-appreciation in the air.
As a possibly former employee (who among us can recall every place they've worked in the past?) who may not have looked at any number of prior employment agreements in an awfully long time, and completely apropos of nothing, I just want to note that endemic is such a good and relevant vocabulary word for current events. I mean, there's the global pandemic, and other things people are talking about, all kinds of uses! Very relevant!
I'm roughly the same age, and while I can remember all the brick-and-mortar places I've gone to work, there was a period where I did temp work and I'm sure I couldn't name all the agencies I worked for and certainly not all the clients.
If you're younger and grew up in the gig economy, that might be much more common.
In my 30s here but I think I more or less remember. For a year or so I worked as a temporary admin assistant in a few locations, the details on some of those are getting a little fuzzy these days. But if anything I remember the feeling of working there a lot better than what the workplace looked like.
Nice bait - you pull me out of lurker mode to respond. I remember most jobs I have had that were paid - including that one kelly temp services job I had that I drove 1.5 hours out into the middle of no where to stand on the start of a one way bridge with a stop sign on a pole and wear a hard hat in the hot sun to 'help' direct truck traffic to a quarry. I was only there 4 hours, but still remember why I was so determined to complete an education.
