Anyway she was hopeless - didn’t care and hid as much as she could - I used to feel sorry for her and yet marvelled at her obvious independent spirit. Or maybe I just envied the indomitability of her youth.

Then one day she quit - a week later there was a poster stuck on the door on our floor saying I’m down spinning records or whatever at the blah blah bar - hope to see you all some time. It was a nice up yours, really. The poster didn’t stay up long, and there’s coffee sachets waiting for me again each morning by the 80 degrees tap.

The point of being “invisible” reoccurs through the book. It just doesn’t happen in small organisations or for casual workers. It happens in large companies. Not simply because of numbers. When workers are overlooked, forgotten, contributions ignored or not consulted on decisions that affect their job it is not much different.

When I was living in LA I had a job delivering food to companies downtown. You’d drag an esky with wheels around to various companies in time for morning tea or lunch time. It was almost soul destroying. The money was poor and apart from a few kind souls, the condescending behaviour of the customers was obvious (as I work in a big office building and you only drag an esky of food around in a beat up Nissan I am you superior). Also downtown LA is not a nice place to be driving around in.

Wonder what her AWA is like?

(Imagine Gilchrist saying that behind the stumps in his dulcet tones).

I’ve been meaning to read Dirt Cheap for a while - thanks for the post!