One of the nicer aspects of landing union membership in the construction trade is that you can work out of hiring halls. These are usually operated jointly by employers and the unions. In essence, they are extremely efficient, low-fee employment agencies. Through the halls you can get short term work all over the country. And if you are in a mind to stay put for a while, you can earn excellent money. I know of people who earn upwards of $40,000 per year working out of hiring halls--plus some fantastic taxfree benefits.
There are a lot of other jobs where references and an employment track record are not required. During the good weather months nearly anyone of able body can find some sort of home improvement work to do. There is also a great deal of work available through temporary employment agencies, particularly office work. Temporary agencies usually ask a lot less questions about your background than full-blown employment agencies which disappearees should definitely avoid. The other nice facet of temporary work is that it very often leads to a fulltime position with whatever company you start out with.
There is one kind of work that the vanisher should by all means avoid, and that is positions that put him in the public eye. Fields like television, radio, bartending, lecturing, bellhopping, etc., should be consistently avoided. I once knew of an accountant from Ketchikan, Alaska who had trouble keeping his clients' money separate from his own. He skipped bail and moved to Portland where he got a job hopping bells in a hotel. About a half-hour after the first Alaskan checked in, he was on an escorted, expense-paid trip back to the Land of the Midnight Sun. As obvious as this point may seem, publicity of this sort (that is, of the kind that could easily have been avoided) has been the downfall of a considerable number of lamsters and fugitives.
Landing the Job
If you're not big on part-time manual labor and desire more permanent work that you can't land with a big smile and a "how do you do," you'll need some references. If paper is what it takes to get that job, then by all means, give them the paper they want.
A couple of mail drops will come in handy at this stage of identity building. You can use them as addresses of fictitious companies that you've worked for. The names of the companies should be vague-sounding so you can claim a variety of different types of responsibilities depending on the job you're applying for. Then you get letterheads printed for these companies and write your own letters of reference or respond to your potential employers' requests for information.
You shouldn't need more than two job references to land another job. This shows your stability as an employee, and more than two is difficult to manage in that you'll need a mail drop for each reference. Besides, the signatures at the bottom of those glowing recommendations may start to look a bit similar to your prospective employer. If someone asks you for phone references, you can simply tell them that your immediate manager retired or went to work for a competitor. You may be able to swing one phone reference through a friend posing as a former employer or through a secretarial service that always tells callers the person they want is in a meeting.
The single most important thing to remember when doing battle with personnel departments is to never give a background too far different from the one required for the job you're applying for. If you're looking for a job on an assembly line somewhere it does absolutely no good to brag about your Ph.D. in English Literature. Personnel people try to never hire a skilled or highly skilled person for an unskilled job. They are fully aware that when a better job opens down the line, the over-skilled employee will be off like a shot out of a cannon.
Resist the temptation to assume any special honors that happen to come with your new identity. The reason for this is simple. A lot of these honors are bestowed on only a very few members of the profession or trade recognizing the honor. The honors are usually well-publicized and, if it's an honor worth using, it's probably sought after by many people in the field.
For example, if you assume the identity of an amateur photographer who was a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America, it would be foolish to use the designation FPSA in connection with any photographic endeavor. The minute a picture appears in a publication credited to "Lawrence Miller, FPSA" it will immediately receive close examination from all the other FPSA's and the guardians of the Society's good name. As soon as they figure out that Lawrence Miller did not take that picture (perhaps Lawrence was a sports photographer and your picture appears in National Geographic) the cry of fraud will be raised. This is the last thing the lamster needs!
Although when one assumes another person's identity he will almost automatically assume his education, it is not wise to attempt to "use" his degrees. Higher degrees bring with them a whole package of "fellowship." This includes alumni of the colleges he attended. If you happen to cross paths with a "fellow alumnus," he will want to chat at great length about all the little pleasures of life at a school you never attended. And if you are a great distance from your alma-mater, even people who are only familiar with the school but never attended it will want to discuss geography with you.
The more prestigious and rare your degree, the greater the risk you run in using it. MD's are documented up one side and down the other and are monitored by professional associations
