The Faint-hearted Bolshevik Read Online Free PDF Page B

of how pathetic it is to smile with bags like that under your eyes) their contracts are not renewed. If they dare to ask what a long weekend is, their contracts are not renewed. There is a catalogue which sets out two hundred and fifty thousand other reasons why a crummy two-bit temp’s contract is not open to renewal. They stopped listing further reasons not because there aren’t any more, but because they’re unnecessary. There is not a single crummy two-bit temp who couldn’t be fired three thousand or so times a day on the basis of the reasons already contained in the catalogue.
    It might seem that no situation can be worse than that of the crummy two-bit temps. There aren’t enough of them and they have to do all the work while the buddhas gleefully cross their way through their betting slips. They aren’t well paid, because if they were, how else could their employers afford to pay the buddhas’ amazing pensions? They don’t have any kind of perks because if they were to have them, the buddhas wouldn’t be able to benefit from the generous private medical insurance that allows them to recover so miraculously and completely from their multiple ailments. Furthermore, when they get to a ripe old age (I mean the few who last that long) every cent of their social security contributions will have been spent on guaranteeing the long lives of the buddhas; the only thing they’ll get is a kick in the ass.
    However, there are those who inspire even more pity. These are the remaining fifth of the seventy per cent of workers who never knew a decent employment contract: the cocksuckers (me, for example). You can find them in what are known as “front-line” professional jobs (not front-line hierarchically speaking, but more like front line as in beachfront, or rather, the landing beach), in commercial banks, stockbrokers, multinational corporations of every description, even, sometimes, in the same companies where the buddhas happily convalesce. The cocksuckers are not crummy two-bit temps: they earn good salaries, in fact, higher than the buddhas themselves. With this alibi, union activity among them is partly inconceivable and partly a show of poor taste. Cocksuckers are young, well-dressed, and they try to be well groomed all the time, which they achieve by various means, some more insane than others. They’re allowed to take a long weekend once in a while, they go skiing and on summer holidays they travel abroad. Throughout the rest of the year, they do miserable penance for their sins.
    According to the latest figures, the life of a cocksucker is worth slightly less than that of a woodlouse that’s had all its little legs torn off. To start with, they work even longer hours than the crummy two-bit temps do. They can’t get sick because there’s always something urgent they have to do. As a result of this they develop addictions to every kind of medication available in order to stay on their feet come rain or shine. While they soldier on in spite of a fever or choke back the vomit, they may well find themselves having to sign off one of the buddhas who wants to go home to recover more readily from a slight headache. Although officially they are all heads of something, they know how to use the computer, the photocopier, the fax machine and the binding machine, because by the time they’ve finished their tasks, even the crummy two-bit temps have already gone home (by then, the buddhas who still have children at school have helped them with their homework and put them to bed and are enjoying a whisky in front of the TV). If this wasn’t enough, any mistake the cocksuckers make is liable to be punished with violent personal humiliation to which they have no possibility of responding.
    Some cocksuckers think this is better than being thrown out on the street, an extreme situation to which they are not subjected as often as the crummy two-bit temps, so they smile while their superiors spit in their faces, thankful for