HEiST! - CrimethInc

STEAL FROM
WORK TO
CREATE
AUTONO-
MOUS
ZONES
It was the 20 th century, back before the internet
really took over, and I was trying to make a zine
but I didn’t have any money to pay for copying.
I’d lost my last office job after I accidentally left
my zine masters in the copy machine when I
sneaked in to use it one night. Embarrassing!
So I went to the local copying store – it was
a chain, and this same story was playing out
all over the country, but I’ll leave the name out
just for good form – and hung around until I
heard the Misfits behind the counter. Back then
employees were allowed to blast a stereo even
during daytime hours; it was a different era. The
employee who had put it on was this big skinhead-looking
guy.
“The Misfits, huh” From that moment,
we were friends. It was an unwritten rule that
if you were into punk or ska or other underground
music, you got a discount. He copied
my zine for me, and in return I used to bring
him food and other stuff I ripped off, since with
the wages he was getting he had to sleep in the
back of his friend’s truck.
Then they put him on night shift by himself,
and things started getting interesting. Now instead
of waiting for him to do a run of 100 for
me when the boss wasn’t looking, I could join
him behind the counter, doing runs of 200, 500,
even 2000. I learned to use some of the big machines.
Customers would come in and mistake
me for an employee, and I would help them with
stuff while my friend knocked out his jobs for
the night. I probably spent three nights a week
there, working and hanging out from midnight
to 5:00 AM. I remember stumbling back to my
apartment in the early morning loaded down
with crates of photocopies, watching the street
sweepers and paper delivery trucks pass – the
city’s secret underbelly. Sometimes I made conversation
with homeless people or other night
owls like myself, up to no good. Surprisingly
often, they would demand copies of the zines
I had made, as if sensing they were not part of
the world of sales and bosses.
Despite all the copying he and I were doing
for ourselves, my friend was still a more