"Bad jobs are an insult to anybody who can think, because, as we all know, the majority of work situations view tendencies towards intelligence as a positive threat,"; says Xtra West contributing editor and Oxford grad Carellin Brooks. She has worked on an all-lesbian construction crew in San Diego and she's been a Chat Line operator-and those were the good jobs.
In Bad Jobs, (Arsenal Pulp $16.95), Brooks presents the memoirs of disgruntled workers such as Sandra Stevens, a one-time-only stripper; author Grant Buday who delivered flyers; and Hal Niedzviecki, an usher. Niedzviecki must pacify a well-dressed, drunken woman making far too much noise during a Bruce Springsteen ballad. "The reality for the under-employed, over-educated young people of North America is that the stupid job is their future,"; he says.
Larry, a graveyard shift attendant at OK Parking, was once held at knife point. He now surveys the world from the safety of his bullet-proof booth. "Anna Karenina took me a week, as did Dante's Inferno,"; he says. "Ape & Essence and Farewell to Arms took me a night. I am expanding myself in a diminutive job. Not everyone can say that."; 1-55152-055-9

[BCBW SUMMER 1999]