My Awesome Job

When my first year of graduate school ended, I carefully weighed my options for summer employment. Or maybe not so carefully; most discussions took place with my friend DJ (also in grad school) over cocktails while avoiding the completion of our finals. Giggling, we considered catering, waitressing, or bartending. We gave some (serious) thought to a theater production entitled Social Work! The Musical, to be accompanied by a documentary-style film which would chronicle our efforts to bring our genius to the masses. In the end, when finals were over, and we still hadn't secured jobs, we decided to temp. Temping, we reasoned, was perfect. We could make some serious money and, as an added bonus, possibly meet cute corporate boys. Since we were off from school for the summer, we wouldn't have to come home and face 200 pages of reading for class the next day. We could go out! We could explore the city! It would be fun! It would be amazing! We could even borrow a (circa 1980's) video camera from my parents and document our sure-to-be-hilarious experience.

I obtained the name and number of an agency from MS, who temped for years. DJ and I scheduled our interviews the week after school ended. My day came (DJ had gone the day before, and had warned me) and I dressed in my best suit (who am I kidding, my only suit) and made the trek across town. I was greeted by tests. Loads and loads of tests. Filing, typing, and the entire Microsoft office suite. I was then escorted to a meeting with The Placer. She informed me that I had scored a perfect 100 on my filing test and that the rest of my scores were 'excellent, excellent' and that she would have 'no problem placing me'. She then leaned forward, with an intense expression, and scrutinized my face. Very solemnly, she asked:

"Do you think you could take out your nose ring for the summer?"

Hmmmm.

Now, I guess this was a semi-reasonable request. Not a big deal. But I love my nose ring. It's cute, it's small and I got it when I had finally decided to leave The Job From Hell and go to graduate school. It's symbolic of that transition, leaving the career I had stumbled into after college (and, somehow, had stayed in for 10 years) to assessing my life and choosing something that would bring fulfillment. Aside from these considerations, I wasn't sure that I could get it out. However, fearing the wrath of The Placer, I agreed.

I left the agency, and 10 minutes later, got a call on my cell phone.

"Hi, it's me."

Me? Who was me? I didn't recognize the number.

"Um?"

"Listen, dear, can you work tomorrow?"

Ohhhhhh. It was The Placer. How had she gone from being mildly disapproving to someone who would call my phone and announce herself as 'me'?

Due to my seriously awesome filing skillz (yay! I know the alphabet!) I had landed a job at Up-Their-Own-Ass investment house. Thus began my experience in hell. Serious hell. When I arrived at said firm, I was led to a stack of papers that was almost as tall as I was, and told that my job would be to file them. Easy, right? Sure. Mind-numbingly easy. Except for the fact that the files were already over-loaded, and prying them apart ripped my cuticles to shreds. At the end of my first day, I was bleeding. On my second day back, I put bandaids on all 10 fingers in an attempt to protect my hands. By the fourth day, my back was sore, my fingers were so raw that the bandaids weren't working any more, and I was BORED. I had been trapped in a silent, still file room for 4 days with no human contact. The Placer wasn't sympathetic ('They pay well...blah blah...free lunch...don't show them an unhappy face...blah blah blah...representing the agency...blah').

A short while later, after a two-week work hiatus (which was fun at first, but then, really, how much time can you spend at the gym? Or cleaning your apartment?) I was "permanently" temporarily placed. I got an assignment for the rest of the summer. I work for a hedge fund. I've been here for 6 weeks, and I still can't tell you exactly what a hedge fund is. I can, however, tell you why I hate temping.

1) Clothes. My firm has a 'business attire' dress code. After being in graduate school for a year, this presents a significant challenge. My uniform of jeans and whatever shirt I've pulled off the floor isn't going to cut it. My mother suggested shopping for business clothes, but it seemed counter-intuitive to have to spend money to make money. So I muddle through, wearing the few remainders of the clothing from my old (pre-graduate-school) life, and always feel like a dork.

2) Boredom. There's not much to do (aside from the rare periods of frenzied activity) but to try to look busy. Companies want to know that they are paying The Agency for a reason. Your part in that contract is to look industrious. This blog is one of the offshoots of trying to look busy.

3) Menial Tasks. Answering phones, scanning, copying, opening mail, filing, travel arrangements, meeting scheduling. Very exciting.

4) Attitude. To most companies, you are Just a Temp and Therefore, Below Their Notice. You won't be there long enough to get personally invested, so they ignore you. At my current assignment, I'm pretty sure that 2 of my bosses don't actually know my name.

5) My Attitude. After being away from the corporate world for a year, I'm lost (aside from that, how corporate was Telecommunications Company anyway? When you're able to call your senior manager an asshole to his face, and frequently do, not so much). There's an entire language I've forgotten, a set of rules that I can't seem to get straight. At my job, I'm timid, I'm submissive, I'm cautious. I cringe at having to enter a meeting to give someone a phone message. I can't even make casual conversation without blushing and feeling like I am 15 years old. I hate going into the kitchen to get my free lunch every day, because I will have to interact with people. This is the hardest part, because I don't feel like me.

DJ was also placed somewhere for the summer, and her experience was even worse than mine. Most nights, we were too exhausted and demoralized to even get together for drinks. Our fun summer evaporated before it even began. This week, she left her job, subletted her apartment, and moved to Vermont until school starts again.

Me? I'm wallowing through. We get free lunch here, and it's Pizza Day today!