me vs. tech data
![A picture named billlumbergh[1].jpg](http://blogs.salon.com/0002916/images/2004/03/22/billlumbergh[1].jpg) Once I worked as a telemarktering temp at a giant computer wholesaler called Tech Data. It must have been the inspiration for the movie Office Space.
I guess they thought I was doing a pretty good job because after a couple of weeks they offerered me a position as a regular employee with vacation, and benefits, 401k and all that.
But first I had to take a five minute personality profile test on a computer. For some reason I decided to answer all the questions on the personality test with complete honesty.
As soon as I was done with the test they told me I had failed and I couldn't be a regular employee.
"So what do I do? Take the test again in six weeks or something?" I said.
"No. You can never take the test again and you can never be a regular employee," they said.
I went back to my cubicle and gnashed my teeth and plotted my revenge. Then I got a computer nerd kid that was a couple cubicle's down help me figure out how to send an e-mail to the entire 5,000 person company. The company had an east coast division, a west coast division, a Latin American Division, a European division, etc.
Then after the computer nerd helped me address them all I sent out my e-mail.
My e-mail basically said, "fuck-you, Tech Data." (Actually, it clearly articulated my grievances and my opinion that the "personality test" was unfair and discriminatory, but the implication was, "fuck you.")
When I got back from lunch this lady from human resources told me I was fired and not to go back to my desk. I went back to my desk anyway and found that my computer was turned off and unplugged. Everyone around the football field sized cubicle room was glancing at me and whispering. I sat down at my desk and started trying to telemarket computers anyway. I opened the phone book and and picked a number at random. It was a hairdressing school.
"Do you need a new hard drive?" I said.
Pretty soon Tech Data sent a "disgruntled employee goon squad" up to extract me. The goon squad consisted of a staff psychologist who looked like a middle school guidance counselor and an in-house lawyer, who looked like Tammy Faye Baker and Katherine Harris (Florida election lady) and a couple of security dudes.
The guidance counselor guy talked me away from my cubicle with some patronizing, psychologist talk like, "why don't we discuss your concerns in the conference room where you'll be more comfortable."
Eventually I relented and went with them into the conference room. I mentioned the word "discrimination" and "personality test" and the Katherine Harris lady hissed that there was no discrimination, and they don't give "personality tests" and I didn't have any case for a law suit.
The guidance counselor asked me very nicely what kind of job I would like to do at Tech Data if I had my pick.
"You mean, what kind of sales job?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I mean, imagine any job that you could dream of doing. It doesn't have to be something that we actually offer or whatever. Just anything."
I thought about it, and again answered with complete honesty.
"I think I would like to be, like, an in-house performance artist. You know, I would just do cool and interesting stuff. It could be a new thing for big corporations."
"I'm sure it could," the counselor said. "Well, what do you say you give us tonight to think about your job status here and what's best for everyone involved. Give us a call in the morning and we'll let you know."
I gave them a call in the morning and they said I was fired.
(Oh, by the way, that very night I got into a terrible fight with my fiancee whose house I lived in. After the fight was over I had no place to stay so I knocked on my ex wife's door in the middle of the night and asked her if I could stay with her for a little while. "Okay, for a little while," she said.)
So anyway, instead of spending the next week looking for a job I built these giant computer cut-outs from sheets of plywood--spending what little money I had saved. Inside the monitor screen area of the computer cut-outs I put upside down american flags. And on top of the up-sidedown American flags I spray-painted the Tech Data logo in perfect form. Then I also made these two totem poles that were supposed to look like telemarketer heads, with headsets and all. But for sybolic effect I stitched up their mouths and and put dollar signs on their eyes. When I was done building my props, I called every TV and radio station and newspaper to try to get publicity and sympathy for my cause. Most showed little interest since I had to admit that I would be the only Tech Data employee at my protest. I called various lawyers in the phonebook and tried to pitch my case. But since I wasn't a minority, or gay, or a woman there was really no basis for discrimination. "Florida is a right to work state," they told me.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"That means that an employer can fire you at any time for any reason, or no reason at all," they said.
"Oh," I said.
"Unless, of course, the reason is discriminatory," they said.
"Oh?" I said.
"Which this is not," they said.
"Oh," I said.
I did my one man Tech Data protest exactly one week after I got canned. I set up my protest computers and totem poles in front of the main entrance to the Tech Data Corporate park. As people streamed in from the highway I tried to pass out this little flier that presented my cause. (I had written my flier on a rented Kinko's typewriter and it had lots of x-outs and corrections and looked like something that a desperate, crazy person would type).
A lot of Tech Data employees rolled their eyes or called me an idiot or refused to take my flier. Many were just kind of indifferent or weren't sure what to make of the spectacle, thinking perhaps it was some big promotion or sales event. I had maybe one or two people furtively tell me that they were "with me 100%" even though that didn't mean that they were going to stand with me or do anything for me at all.
In the meantime, it was a very windy day and my protest computers and telemarketing totem poles kept blowing over into the street. One one would blow over and I would rush over and prop it back up in front of the bewildered Tech Data people, and while I was holding that one up another one would blow over, and so on. It was pretty ridiculous.
The only newsmedia that showed up was a reporter and a photographer from the Weekly Planet, our Tampa Bay "alternative news" weekly. They actually ended up doing a whole feature story about me and some of my other art antics in the area. The basic thrust of the article when it finally came out a couple months later was that I was kind of a nut trying to get attention.
In retrospect, I have to give Tech Data credit for one important thing. Their personality test was dead on. I hated their corporate environment and couldn't stand working there. I would have quit or been fired within months, wasting their valuable training dollars I suppose. Or what's worse for me I would have somehow really changed and conformed into a coporate drone. But it was the principle of the thing.
I learned something valuable from the experience as well. A couple years later I got arrested for DUI when I drove my pick-up truck through a park downtown. As part of the DUI process I had to take a personality test to determine whether I needed mandatory drug and alcohol counseling that would have lasted months and cost hundreds of dollars.
There were about a hundred questions on the test and I lied on every single one of them. When I was done, the person at the DUI place said, "well, it looks like you don't need the alcohol counseling."
7:51:30 AM 
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