Why does this book scare the hell out of the media-cracy?

Guest post by Pastor Dan; first appeared on Street Prophets.

Longer ago than I care to admit, I made my living as a temporary office drone.

One of the things you learn very quickly if you actually depend on temp work for a living -- if you're not just supplementing your spouse's income or saving up in the summer between college and grad school -- is how to make yourself useful. Somebody asks you to do something, and you do it, otherwise you don't get asked back the next time the secretary is on vacation. That's the way the system works.

Once I worked in a financial office -- we sold bonds, I think -- for a month or two. My cube was next to one belonging to a permanent employee. We supported different bosses, but I was given to understand that we were also expected to help one another with certain shared tasks. The biggest thing was a set of reports we had to send off daily. Not an uncommon set-up, and since I liked my co-worker, it wasn't exactly a burden.

The bosses liked me too and felt comfortable enough to leave me more or less in charge when the permanent person went on vacation.

But they also hired a temp to cover her desk. Not just any temp, mind you, but a Harvard graduate who was just there to kill some time before The Next Big Thing in her life. This Harvard graduate proceeded to spend all her time on the phone complaining to her friends about how boring and demeaning her job was, and how she couldn't wait to get on to The Next Big Thing, whatever that was. Once, after listening to her gas on for forty-five minutes about being bored, I suggested to her that I could show her how to configure the reports, which were stacking up in her inbox.

"Dan, with all due respect," she said. "I'm not stupid. I went to Harvard."

At the end of her week there, she hadn't ...