Word: tempe
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...much for one weekend a month, two weeks a year. Since Sept. 11, nearly 425,000 National Guard and reserve troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Like temp workers with no benefits, however, these citizen-soldiers find that when they leave the reserve forces, they are not entitled to the same tuition assistance as regular Army veterans...
This is a typical Baghdad love story. Sameera Ubaid had a temp job last summer, supervising examinations at an engineering college. In the exam hall one day, she met Salaam Ali, a lecturer at the college. They made small talk while ensuring that the students didn't cheat. When the exams ended, they went their separate ways, promising to call but, Ali says, "never expecting to see each other again...
...turns violent and moving, the book includes tales of a hapless jobbing magician who can't help conjuring up severed rabbits' heads at birthday parties, a dithering hard-boiled hit man, and the goddess Venus working as an office temp. Thrown into the mix alongside a clutch of tragically distant fathers is a string of treacherous girlfriends - one of whom demands her beau deliver her the heart of his mother, to prove his love...
...Haruko tells her full-time colleagues that "overtime is not in my vocabulary," leaves work precisely at 6 p.m. and in between contracts, flies to Spain to work on her flamenco dancing (don't ask). When the company offers her a permanent job, she turns them down, preferring a temp's freedom to the corporate ideal. That attitude appeals to young Japanese who might actually want a life outside of work...
...trouble is, few temps can actually earn a living wage. Almost 40% of contract workers receive salaries that are less than 80% of a full-time wage, contrary to government guidelines. Haruko may command top yen on TV, but good luck jetting to Madrid on your off days when you make less than $11,000 a year, as 34% of male and 55% of female part-timers do. And even putting salary concerns aside, many of those part-timers would still opt for full-time employment if they could. Despite the damage it sustained during the lost decade...