A Working Stiff's Manifesto Read Online Free Page A

me here. After all, I’m polite and I have a good haircut. And if I turn out to be a complete fuck-up, hell, he didn’t hire me, John did.
    And so I’m in.
    Ippolito spends several hours showing me how to cut fish, and he tells me his life story. He’s been cutting fish since he was a kid, growing up in a small fishing village in Italy. He came to America three years ago, married an American girl, and got a job cutting fish here in Scarsdale, New York.
    They hired Ippolito at eight dollars an hour, probably because he couldn’t speak English very well back then. Despite the fact that he is now almost fluent, his wages haven’t gone up that much. Two years later, he now makes eleven. Then they hired me for twelve.
    Instead of giving him a raise, John then decided to give Ippolito a title, junior manager. The responsibilities consist of making the schedule for one person, me. Basically, his managerial perk is to schedule me whenever he doesn’t want to work, but he is limited because he is still getting an hourly wage. He needs to give himself a decent living, and he can’t give me overtime. The Market is not going to give me eighteen dollars an hour to mangle fish. In fact, they’re not going to give me eighteen dollars an hour for anything, ever. They have some kind of computer system, I am told, where lights and buzzers go off in the payroll office the minute anyone receives overtime, and regional managers and district managers and various other executives fly in from the golf course and start screaming. So Ippolito’s big perk is to schedule me Sunday mornings, which he has been working for the last two years, and now he can finally go to church with his wife.
    Ippolito is a loyal, competent, hardworking man and I am an incompetent drifter making more money than he is. The Market will eagerly pay security guards to watch monitors on six-figure security systems to make sure that we don’t steal three-dollar bottles of salad dressing, but they won’t give this man the money he deserves, even when he politely asks for it. To them it is a game. How little can we get him to work for? Poor wop, barely speaks English, let’s crap on his head from a great height. Ah, look, our best employee makes less than that haircut we just hired, let’s make him a manager. And everything is all right. Ippolito ’s wife is pregnant; he’s not going anywhere. I don’t have a wife, and no one else wants my job, so I get anything I want.
    I respect Ippolito for knowing he is getting screwed, and I respect him more for mentioning it to me. A lot of people in his situation would abuse me because I got lucky. He could spend all day complaining to John about how incompetent I am, trying to get me fired, but where would that leave him? Working Sunday mornings again. Then the Market would eventually hire someone else, maybe someone who cuts fish as well as he does, and then he’d have to feel threatened about losing his manager position. Me, I’m a nice, easy-going guy, I do what I’m told, I work Sunday mornings, and best of all, I’m incompetent. I’m no threat to anyone. I’m fitting in nicely.
    The next few days go by peacefully. By my second day, I am trusted to run the entire fish counter by myself. Ippolito comes in at seven, cuts most of the fish, and leaves at three o’clock. The Market closes at seven, and there is an hour of closing duty, so both of us manage an eight-hour shift. Best of all, I only have to spend the first three hours of my shift with a supervisor. After that, I am on my own.
    Like most modern itinerant workers, I’ve waited tables for long enough to be proficient at customer service, and am soon on the fast track to success at the Market. Zoe comes by and notices me chatting amiably with some regulars, who make a point of telling her what a splendid individual I am. She doesn’t even mention that I am still wearing the same