The Idler

Indirect Debit

My first job after leaving University was to a temp for large Insurance company activating direct debits.
Hundreds of little grey slips came to my desk every single day, and it was the mental equivalent of a conveyor belt at a factory. The same repetitive task over and over again. But the ancient computer system was slower than you could (theoretically) work, expectations low and quality control lower. So to cope I basically stopped working - there were enough other people doing the same thing to easily cover my
idleness.
Paid per hour I came in late and went straight for a mid-morning nap on the (empty) top floor. After a two hour lunch at the pub or smoking joints in the park it was time for mid afternoon football in the empty canteen with another temp. Then it was time to go home. Each week my timesheet was
signed by someone who worked at a different office so I could easily submit that I had worked 40 hours. One afternoon I came back from lunch so drunk on vodka I passed out at my desk for 3 hours. No-one noticed; after all, I was only a temp. In the end I lasted 9 months and if they looked in my drawer afterwards they would’ve found 5,000 inactivated direct debit slips.

Tuppence.