The Gospel of Airlite

Working as a contractor is similar to believing in God. You don’t know any of the details behind the fabled contract, therefore it requires a certain degree of faith in order to get you through the day. The contract company will preach to you that it will always be there for you, contrary to any evidence that shows your job may be swept out from under your feet at any time. The flow of boxes slows to a trickle, yet more contractors are brought in at a steady flow creating an even greater stranglehold on our collective productivity. No matter how bleak and dismal the future may seem, we are taught to have faith that it is just a lull, and that the contract is actually being extended beyond the previously quoted time, because the UP Gods love us unconditionally. We may not always believe, but we are too frightened at the prospects of finding something different that we are satisfied with pretending to believe.

As with any God, there is a love-hate relationship. He tests us with great hardships because He loves us, and while sometimes we may doubt Him and find Him cruel, we realize that these are the kinds of hardships that polish an ugly looking rock into a gem. The Gods at the UP are always watching over our numbers. They always expect more of us, but when our numbers drop, their satisfaction is not shaken. Our mental alacrity is challenged by hours of dull work, but we always find a way to pick our spirits back up. Sure, maybe we don’t have benefits and we are barely able to scrape together a decent living with our wages, but at least we aren’t passed out on the steps of the church next door with the rest of the bums. The “reviewers” constantly challenge our faith by reporting our work-related sins to the UP Overlords, but the UP Gods are compassionate enough to forgive us, for we know not what we do in our states of desperate boredom.

We may not have much as contractors, but we can still have faith that tomorrow is a new day. And perhaps that will be the day where we are provided with a bounty of boxes full of agreements along with detailed and accurate maps, in order to get us through to the next day without completely losing it. Working as a contractor doesn’t necessarily mean we have a contract on our heads or that our days are numbered. It may seem like a life sentence at times, but at least it’s not a death sentence…