One winter in the 1970s, I got a job over the winter break as a stockboy at Montgomery Wards. The chain referred to all its employees as associates. Once Christ

One winter in the 1970s, I got a job over the winter break as a stockboy at Montgomery Wards. The chain referred to all its employees as associates. Once Christmas was over, I looked at the schedule for the next week, and found myself not on it, ergo presumably... dissociated. I thought it an odd way to let me know, but in any case I would not have continued to work when school resumes. For that matter my father earned the money for the engagement ring he gave my mother by working evening hours as a holiday-season mail handler for the United States Post Office. That would have been about 1952. He may have been on break from graduate school, or he may have been employed by the Geological Survey. I don't object to there being seasonal jobs. I do object to them being the model for employment in general. [edit: corrected typo]