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I have not read this book, and I am glad it has been brought to my attention; I look forward to reading it. I will do so, though, with a certain amount of trepidation.

I have been a temp/contractor/freelancer for 8 years now; I have never held any other kind of job. And I am rather used to the warped media view of what I do. All stories in the press either take the stance that (less commonly) temps/contractors/freelancers/etc. are incompetant bloodsuckers who will take the client for all they're worth or (the vast majority) temps/contractors/freelancers/etc. are exploited by the system of temping/contracting/freelancing and duped into thinking there's something good about it.

My trepidation, then, arises from the bit Katz quotes on "Cab Drivers". Sounds like – and, no, I don't have enough information to really know – the same-old-same-old. "Oh, those poor benighted independents! Eeking out a hard-scrabble existence, chasing job after job, for a chance of getting paid! Oh, pity the poor contractor without health insurance, without 401(k), without job security!"

For what it's worth: I chose this lifestyle because it works for me. Most reasonable agencies in this day and age offer benes (health, 401k, etc.) to their W2 employees. I have, in some ways, more job security than most people: if my relationship with a client deteriorates, I call up my agent and say "Get me out of here" – and he does.

That having been said, on to the real point:

In the last eight years, I've worked on some 50 client sites, in just about every conceivable kind of workplace: businesses of every shape and size, univerisities, non-profits, the gummint, even a major religion (no kidding). Sometimes for a day, sometimes for a month, sometimes for many months at a stretch.

Part of what got me hooked on this kind of work was the opportunity to see the insides of so many different workplaces. I wanted an answer to "What is 'work' like for most people?" and I didn't want to generalize, as everyone seemed to, from a paltry handful of data points.

These are some of the things I have learned:

Everyone thinks their workplace is "normal", no matter how abusive it is.

Workplaces are like families in that, because people tend not to be in more than one or two at a time, they have no benchmark against which to compare them. So everywhere I went, from places with fantastic morale and loyalty to the pits of Hades, everyone thought that where they worked – their relationship to their boss, their relationship to their coworkers, their morale of their division/company/branch/department, etc. – was "normal", and that if they changed their jobs their new work experience would be just the same. If their current experience was bad, it wouldn't get better anywhere else; if their current experience was good, it wouldn't be worse (or better) anywhere else.

The major reason that's bad is that it allows people in positions of authority to get away with murder. It's fatalism pure and simple.

The minor reason that's bad is that it reduces the posibility for sympathy between workers of very different companies to nil. Say worker A, coming from The Eighth Circle, LTD, applies for a job at Elysian Fields, Inc. where they are interviewed by worker B. All worker B can tell is that worker A didn't get much accomplished, had a rocky relationship with their job, and seems pretty despondent/desperate. Worker B does not see that in the context of Elysian Fields, Inc. worker A could be a great employee, because worker B doesn't realize the existence of different contexts. This is one of the reasons people tend to move from cruddy job to cruddy job, and good job to good job!

People believe their bosses have the power of life and death over them.

Sometimes, I think that a whole lot of people try to use their bosses as substitute parents, trying to earn the love and appreciation and approval of absent parents through the proxy of their bosses. Cuz they act like kids: unwilling to say "no, I'm sorry, I can't do that for you", shameful and resentful at not doing things good enough, and in short completely manipulatable.

(Which is one of the reasons I suspect as crooked any company which makes a big deal of how much it is a "family".)

Self-determination (poo-pooed above) really is worth it

Self-determination, however, is not just a function of being independently employed. It is much easier to find self-determination when you're on your own – that's a good chunk of why I went that route – but not everyone (or even most everyone) manages to find self-determination in being a temp/contractor/freelancer, nor is it impossible to be self-determined while "employed directly".

Self-determination is a state of mind, or, if you will, a state of spirit. It is a deep undertstanding that you are, in the end, responsible for the course of your life.

Some people get to self-determination via paranoia and cynicism: "Ain't nobody looking out for me, ever, but me." Some people get there via religious faith or a strong sense of calling: "I have to do what I was put here to do." Some people get there via a brush with death: "I am not going to waste any more of my precious seconds of life in such misery." Some people get there via philosophy, some people get there via hunger.

Doesn't matter how you get there: get there.

Self-determination is the rope by which you can haul yourself out of the quicksand of bad employment situations. Self-determination is the difference between being pathetically vulnerable and being able to shrug off the crap.

This isn't some woo-woo newage neo-psychology about positive thinking. Self-determination is a tool for hacking on lives. And its old name is "liberty", and people fought and died for it.

Most people believe that the expression "Being your own boss" actually has relevant meaning

Look: you, every last one of you, are the captains of your own fates. You are your own bosses, already.

Ultimately, you have only yourself to answer to. Are you, upon your death bed, going to worry "Was I sufficiently obedient? Was I a good enough employee? Were my bosses pleased with my service?"

You are responsible for the course of your life. That doesn't mean it's entirely your fault, but it is your responsibility, same way that if your puppy messes on your rug, the mess is not your fault, but it's still your responsibility. Shit happens. What I'm talking about is how you then deal with the shit.

It is nobody else's job to rescue you from the misery of an abusive job, or a job you just don't like. It's nobody else's job to answer the question "What shall I do with my life?" It's nobody else's job to intervene and say "You're throwing the best years of your life away on a crummy situation."

It's your job to care about you. It's your job to care about you enough to stand up for yourself; to refuse to allow other to take advantage of you; to force yourself to get out of fatal ruts. It's your job to step back and take a good long look at your life so far and ask "Is where I am now on the path to where I want to be? Is this getting me where I want to go? Is this trip I am on worth being on?".

A staggering number of people entrust this job to their bosses, or to Lady Luck (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi!). But, ya know, those bosses don't care about you. That's not their job. You cannot abdicate this responsibility without suffering. To try and get someone else to do this for you is to look for parenting, to try to find someone to treat you like you're a kid and they're your mom-or-dad. But not even your parents can do this for you once you're an adult. This is what it means to be an adult.

Most (adult) people who are abused allow the abuse to happen

If your work situation is abusive – whether your boss is taking advantage of you financially or you are being sexually harassed by co-workers or your workspace is giving you an RSI – ask yourself "Why am I putting up with this?"

If the only answer you have is "I've gotten myself into debt up to my eyeballs and I'm terrified of being unemployed, so my current employer has me by the short and curlies", then I recommend to you the book Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin)

If your answer is "Because I am too timid to confront the problem/people", then you really do have a problem, because even if you get out of the current situation, you'll bring your fatal weakness with you. You'll be an abuse victim waiting to happen.

Only you can rescue you. The rest of us are powerless to. You have to decide to be brave and decide stop it for yourself.

And that's what I learned as a temp/contractor/freelancer.
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