5 Ways to Tell How Well a Potential Employer Would Treat You as an Employee

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. I'm self-employed now, but I temped for three years all over the Twin Cities in the 1980s, and

I'd say that your observations are right on target.

If it's a manufacturing company (rarer in the U.S. these days, I know), ask to see the plant and note if there's someone whose job it is to walk around yelling at people to "work faster" or "stop talking." Find out what the break policy is (at some plants, employees have to clock out if they want to use the bathroom), whether overtime is compulsory, and if so, how long.

Find out if the company has a "caste system." At some of the companies I worked at, the manufacturing employees had to report at 7AM, had 20-30 minutes for lunch, and no more than 1 hour total break time. (At one plant, they had one ten-minute break in the morning, 20 minutes for lunch, and nothing after that.) Meanwhile, the clerical and managerial employees had to report between 8:30 and 9:00AM, had an hour for lunch, and could pour themselves a cup of coffee or use the bathroom or stand around the water cooler whenever they felt like it.

This was standard at most companies.