The Recruiting Office by Dave Duggan
DCSDC and DTUC Workers' Rights and Social Justice Week on-line Festival 2020
Hello there. Sé do bheatha. My name is Dave Duggan, presenting abridged extracts from my play, The Recruiting Office. I wrote and directed it, as a Sole Purpose Production, in 2004. It toured community venues in the district. I planned to do a new production and tour, as part of the Festival, organised by Derry City and Strabane District Council and Derry Trades’ Union Council, for Workers’ Rights and Social Justice Week. You know what happened to those plans.
So here’s some lockdown theatre then, in this year’s on-line festival.
1. A young man and a slightly older woman, wearing suits, turn up at the recruiting office. The man speaks first.
MAN: I’m simply looking for work. To get on the job. Here, at the recruiting office.
WOMAN: Me too. So let’s get down to business.
MAN: Business? Have you an education? A trade?
WOMAN: I had. Seamstress. Overlocker. Cuffer. Stitcher. I’ve done more than twenty years in the shirt factories. All closed. Have you a trade?
MAN: None. I’m a scholar.
WOMAN: If you were not so well dressed, I would have taken you for a poet. Such soft hands.
MAN: I work in software. (beat, explaining) Computer code. Not verses.
WOMAN: I worked in hardware. Hard wearing shirts that women crafted and machined until the world had no use for us. He’s not here then? Nobody is here then?
MAN: No.
2. They’re both looking for work. As are many, many others. But who should
get the job in the software sector? The woman doesn’t hang about.
WOMAN: What brought you here?
MAN: Hunger and ambition.
WOMAN: The first I know about. The second I’ve never really understood. And what would you do to satisfy this hunger?
MAN: Anything.
WOMAN: You would take any job he’d give you?
MAN: Beggars can’t be choosers.
WOMAN: Now you’re a beggar. Something of a comedown from a scholar. When did that happen?
MAN: Soon as I left the university. I have debts. I have a loan to repay. I want a job.
WOMAN: Ah yes. But do you deserve one?
MAN: I’ve studied. I’ve been good. I’ve kept my nose clean. I’ve kept quiet.
I’ve bought all the things I was told to buy. I’ve lusted after all the things
I was told to lust after. I’ve watched the films they told me to watch. I’ve dreamed the dreams they told me to dream. (beat) I bought the suit.
WOMAN: And you will do anything for this job?
MAN: Anything.
WOMAN: You’ll work in a sweatshop for low wages and under cut anybody else who works in the same way? You’ll do anything he says?
MAN: Yes. I can’t make demands.
WOMAN: You can’t make demands! You’re not a beggar. You’re a slave.
3. The woman worked in shirt factories, long closed. She sings.
WOMAN:
The clock on the wall says twenty to three
And that’s where it stopped so we all could see
The shirt factory girls, who sweat for their pay
Bent over machines at work everyday
The shirt factory girls ‘tis true what they said
Held the city together with a twist of their thread
The shirt factory girls when all’s said and done
Worked the day long to take home the mon(ey)
The shirt factory girls they danced through the gate
Past cameras and press intent on their fate
The factories flew off to sunnier climes.
And left them to fend in more flexible times.
4. The man is not convinced.
MAN: What are you on about? This is about hunger and ambition? Simple.
I only came here for a job.
WOMAN: You only came here for a job! Any job that he will give you? So, you can hand over control of your whole life to him?
MAN: It’s the deal, isn’t it? That’s what I’m here for. And if that’s what it takes to satisfy my hunger, all my hungers…………My hunger for food, shelter, light, heat, clothes, cars, holidays, spare cash to have a pint with my mates when I want to – normal things - the chance to meet someone and start a family, a house we could live in …
WOMAN: And for that you’re prepared to sell your soul?
MAN: You’re making too much out of this. It’s not a pact with the devil. It’s only a job. It’s a simple thing.
WOMAN: If it’s such a simple thing, then how come jobs are so hard to come by?
5. Any wonder the man has such a bitter view of the world of work.
MAN: We just have to put up with certain things. That’s the way the world is.
WOMAN: But why should we have to beg? Is there no dignity in this?
MAN: We’re living in the real world, in case you hadn’t noticed. There is a price to pay. I’ve got to work for somebody.
WOMAN: But on what terms? (beat) Say he comes in here today and says ‘right, young man, you’re on, here’s your contract. Sign it.’ What will you do?
MAN: What will I do? Why I’ll sign it.
WOMAN: Will you even read it?
MAN: ‘Course I’ll read it. But I won’t get too worried about it. It’ll probably be just a standard thing anyway.
WOMAN: Just because it’s standard doesn’t mean it’s right. What about union
membership, rates of pay, severance details, maternity and paternity leave,
sick benefits, pension rights…
MAN: Give over, will you? If I start asking about them things, I’ll never get a job.
You'll only cause him bother. You’ll only want to start a union and never stop
complaining about tea breaks and holidays.
WOMAN: And what’s wrong with that? What kind of a place is he going to run if he
won’t allow a union?
MAN: If you want to get ahead in a place like this you have to keep your nose clean
and your head down.
WOMAN: How can you possibly keep your nose clean, when your head is so far down, it’s up his arse?
6. So, the woman shows the man a new reality, one built on dignity.
WOMAN: You think it’s all briefings and meetings, freshly ground coffee and brandy, black tie and golf links. But could you handle the call about redundancies?
MAN: You’re being unrealistic again. (beat) Lets say he comes in now, and he gives you a job, hands you the contract and all. You’d read it of course. But would you sign it then?
WOMAN: Only if it met my terms and conditions.
MAN: Then you’ll starve. You’ll never get a job. You’ll hunger and you’ll waste away and all your experience and all your fine words will count for nothing.
WOMAN: I said I didn’t understand ambition. But now I realise I understand it only too well. I am ambitious. For my rights. Rights that people like me, and your parents, have struggled for over the years. Rights that are always under threat, unless we hold
together.
MAN: What are your terms and conditions?
WOMAN: Above all else, I want my dignity.
MAN: (beat) So do I.
WOMAN: On those terms and conditions, I will sell my labour. (beat) I will work for him. I will work for anybody. God knows I’ve done enough of it down the years, but I will not be anybody’s slave. Service but not servility.
Those are my terms and conditions. Is that enough ambition for you?
MAN: As you said, it’s not so simple a matter. We need to co-operate.
WOMAN: Unite. Yes. Welcome to the world of work.
And so ends the play.
You’ve been listening to abridged extracts from The Recruiting Office by Dave Duggan, as part of 2020’s Workers’ Rights and Social Justice Week, an on-line Festival run by Derry City and Strabane District Council and Derry Trades’ Union Council.
The full text of the play can be found in Plays in a Peace Process by Dave Duggan, published by Guildhall Press and available from Little Acorns Bookshop, Easons and on-line. See you at the full production in next year’s full festival. Slán. All the best.
©Dave Duggan April 2020
www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter
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