by Crimethinc. Workers' Collective
Available in 284 free installments
Owner:
Make use of services corporations offer for customers, like paper cutters in photocopying franchises. Take advantage of computers, public access phones, and everything else like them at universities, businesses, and local community centers. Infiltrate college cafeterias, smuggle massive quantities of food out of corporate buffets. Keep an eye out for needed resources that come free with other services, like the hot showers you can take during your free trial membership at the health spa, or the fancy dinner you can get
cheap at the casino even if you're not gambling. Sign up for guided tours of production plants, just for the free samples. Piggyback along on activities that would be taking place anyway: stow away on freight trains, sit in on college classes.
Don't be afraid to ask for things (see Hitchhiking, pg. 296). You can place want ads for things people might have and not need in the classified pages of local papers?paint, pianos, bicydes, scrap metal. You can call companies and ask if they have leftovers, or if they want to support a community organization with a donation of materials. Make use of the waste of your society (see Dumpster D/Vmg, pg. 219). Get familiar with all the junkyards, scrapyards, and salvage programs in your area. Take over unused spaces (see Squatting, pg. 507).
Anything you can, make yourself (see Musical Instruments, pg. 383 and How to Build a Rocketstoi^e, pg. 431). Start a garden, build shelving from discarded timber at construction sites, forge yourself a bus pass. If you have medical needs, there are free and low-cost clinics that may provide for you, and there are ways to obtain free treatment from the medical establishment (see Health Care, pg. 275); you can also learn do-it-yourself forms of medicine and therapy.
Pilfer: pens, markers, matches, toilet paper, tape, envelopes, plates and silverware, everything that isn't chained down in corporate America. Con your enemies out of things: show up to posh restaurants wdth forged paperwork, explaining that you are there from some glamorous magazine to do research for a story on their cuisine. Write to corporations asking for free coupons for their products?^you purchased a defective item, or you want them to give as gifts?and counterfeit them in massive numbers. Steal from corporations (see Shoplifting, pg. 477)?that goes double if you work for one.
You can apply for grants, but don't get lost in the world of bureaucracy. There are social welfare programs, but don't rely on them unless you are very much in need?they have too few resources for too many needy people as it is. If you do have to buy anything, buy it from local, independent merchants that you respect, if possible.
You can build a greywater system to reuse the water that flows through your sink and shower?for example, to irrigate your garden, or pour into toilets instead of wasting clean water to flush them. For a simple start, just put buckets under the sinks, open the pipes under the drains, and seal off the exit pipes going to the septic tank.
You can catch rainwater in a trough hung from your roof, and redirect the water into a basin. Install a pump in the basin, set up some piping into your kitchen area, and with a little fine-tuning you'll have running water.
If you have to get a job, you can form a union with your fellow employees. It need not necessarily be part of a larger union?an informal, even secret association capable of arranging unofficial strikes might suffice.
Unemployment 581
How to Spend Your Permanent Vacation
You can sleep outside?laying out
cardboard when you sleep in fields,
alleys, and other such places will
help you stay warm and dry. In bad
weather, look for an all-night bus
terminal?^they're less likely to kick
you out for napping than the 24-hour
diner?or investigate whether there
are any rooms or closets to wait in
until the public library closes.
You can make a pocket hand-warmer
by filling a cloth bag with dry beans
plus rice or corn and microwaving it;
it should retain heat for a couple of
hours, and if you get hungry, you can
always cook and eat your hand-warmer.
Unemployment 5S2
Not working is only half the battle, and not the important half, at that. The real question is what you do instead.
