I reaaaaaaaaally hate this temp job

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m here for another 14.5 hours. I am living for 4:30 pm, Thursday, March 11, 2004.

How do I hate it? Let me count the ways.

I hate the temp agency that sent me on this assignment after I said “No phone work.” I guess answering all incoming calls for this department doesn’t count.

I hate that I had to stay and finish this assignment after finding out about answering the phones because we need the money so desperately.

I hate answering the phones and telling everyone “I’m a temp here for a couple of days. I can’t answer your question, and I don’t know who can.”

I hate the people who get snotty with me because I can’t help them.

I hate that I don’t have a “do not disturb” button that I can “accidentally” push on this phone. “Oh, how did that happen? I must have leaned against it.”

I hate that I sit and twiddle my thumbs for 5 hours of every 7 hour day and try not to look too obvious twiddling.

I hate being treated like a servant. Some people are so good with temps, and some are such assholes. Like the woman who sits four feet away and hasn’t said two sentences to me in four days, but chatters away with everyone else. Thanks for making me feel at home. I appreciate it.

I hate the supervisors that think I need to learn all sorts of complicated procedures to sit here and type and answer the phone for five days. Hello - I’m gone in two days. Don’t waste my time trying to teach me your archaic and incredibly convoluted filing system. I don’t care.

I hate the location.

I hate that I’m forced to take an unpaid hour for lunch so I have to be here even longer.

I think that’s it.

2

At least you’re not bitter…

3

I’m with you somewhat. I’m temping at the moment, doing something completely unrelated (accounts receivable?!?) to my profession of the last six years (photography). Yeah, it’s boring. Yeah, it’s monkey work. Yeah, it sucks being stuck in an office, working regular hours after working for five years on my own clock, outside, and with people.

But as I struggle to get my bearings after moving back to Chicago from Budapest, I’ve realized it’s not worth sitting around not making money. I figure any job is better than no job while I pool together resources and contacts to get back into my field.

It sucks, but that’s the great thing about being a temp: the job is flexible, and if you have a bad assignment, it ends soon enough, and you could be off to the next. Much less can be said about somebody stuck in a dead-end full-time job.

Knowing that this is a temporary necessity and much more responsible than sitting on my ass doing little at home keeps me from going insane.

I mean, you’re justified to rant – I totally understand. But keep sight of the bigger picture, and maybe it’ll help you through your day.

4

I can really empathize with you ** featherlou**.

My temp job is nowhere near as badsounding as yours, but it’s sure different than my last “real” job. Sigh, if the midwest is the bible belt, then this little Texas town to which I’ve moved is the buckle. And THAT is coming from a person who is a christian (NOT a fundie).

I work for a place where I want to scream “GAAAAAH this is a college, NOT a convent!!!”

The highly formal “good ole boy” atmosphere is stifling to someone who’s spent her last 10 years at work jumping in with both feet, and basically being given free rein to manage, work and trouble-shoot, not to mention wear (and happily too) several different hats.

I’m used to having bosses and supervisors observe me work for a few days (or part of a project) and then step back and figuratively say “you go girl”.

Here, they explain step by step how to copy a piece of paper. It’s really obvious from their shock, that they don’t often get people who show up every day, and on time, and can work unsupervised.

The Head Dean receives emails, and then, rather than just forwarding them, he prints them, has them copied, and then distributed by hardcopy. Everything is Slooooooow SLOOOOW moving, and every tiny detail is explained VERY carefully, as if you might somehow set off a WMD if you misscopied something.

I AM however very grateful to have gotten a job, despite the fact that I’m in a rather depressed area economy wise, and that I’m BRAND new (had only been here a little over three weeks when I was asked out on this job), to the area.

Hey, I guess it’s a good way of learning the new culture of this area, as opposed to Alaska. But DANG, I understand, working outside of one’s “comfort zone” can be frustrating.

5

“Badsounding”???

Argh…it’s the ear infection, yeah, that’s the ticket :smiley:

6

Man, crappy temp jobs suck. I feel your pain, having gone through this myself for a while.

The one thing I had on my ‘no’ list was cold calling. I happen to think unsolicited sales calls are rude. (I don’t care if it works, it’s still rude.) I’ll happily scrub public toilets before I become some kind of glorified telemarketer. (As a side note, now that I work as the admin to a VP of Technology, where at least 4 people a day try to get past me to try and sell him some kind of IT product, my dislike of cold calling has grown to hatred.)

I even explained my philosophical problems with cold calling to the temp agency, and yet they sent me on an assignment where ten minutes after I sat down, someone came out and said, “Okay, we’re going to have you do some cold calling.”

Did you complain to your temp agency?

7

Okay, I can talk again now that four manager men have moved away from having a yak session directly behind me.

I never pretended not to be bitter. I’m horribly bitter.

I didn’t complain to my agency yet (I have a long-term contract interview with them tomorrow), but I won’t be taking any more phone work assignments. I will ask them specifically next time “Is there any phone work?” cause they seem to need it spelled out for them.

Oh, I just experienced another reason to hate this assignment - my supervisor just reamed me out for forwarding a call to his cell that he didn’t want to take. What a dick.

8

Well sure, an ear infection would make anything badsounding.

9

Having been on the other end of the table, I have to say that you would be shocked at how hard it is to find a temp who is capable of doing even the most basic of work reliably. Having someone like you walk through the door is nothing short of miraculous. Trust me on this. We had our department Admin go out on maternity leave and tried to get a temp to work for a for a few months.

One lady was so stupid that it was hard to believe. One day I held a meeting that ran from 10am to 11am. At 2pm she came to me to deliver some news. This is what she said and I will try to quote it exactly. “This guy stopped by my desk this morning to tell me that he couldn’t make it to your meeting. I don’t remember his name.” Like what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

This same lady was told to make sure that some important paperwork got to someone in a different building by the next morning. The company only had two buildings and they were 500 yards apart. We’re talking a three minute walk. She sent the papers via FedEx.

Then there was the Drama Queen. She has a husband in jail and a boy friend on the side and hit on every man in the building between the ages of 20 and 50. She told everyone who would listen about all of her problems and burst into tears a couple of times a day. We all felt so sorry for her it took a month to finally let her go. Five years later I was working for a different company and we needed a temp and she shows up and it was the same shit all over again.

I could go on and on. The problem is that anyone who is capable of doing a good job at mindless temp work is way over qualified and it will bore them to death. That being said, I’ve seen lots of temps get noticed for their great work over the years and then get offers for better jobs somewhere else in the company.

Finally, there is no excuse to treat a temp worker like crap. That’s just cruel for the sake of being cruel.

Haj

10

I’ve been a temp worker for different firms in different areas of the country for eight years. Most of the time, I love it. I’m good at what I do, I’m reliable, and I’m relatively discreet when it comes to things like client information, so contractees tend to think I’m some sort of demigod in comparison to the average might-show-up, might-not temp.

On the other hand, you do sometimes get the kind of assignments like the one I’m doing now, for my county tax bureau. I’m completing the optical character recognition of the scans of the local tax returns. It’s eight hours of staring at a computer screen checking the facsimile image of the return with the computer’s take on what it says. Eight hours of stare, scroll, stare, scroll, correct, scroll, stare, scroll…

I fight the urge to doze off and take a header into the monitor every second of the day.

If I weren’t as much of a professional as I am, I’d terminate my assignment tomorrow. I’ve never had such a completely mindless assignment. Even entering employer W-2 information is more exciting than this.

Six more weeks…six more weeks…

11

Yeah, I know where you’re coming from with the phone thing. For me it was data entry. I HATE data entry with a passion. Yet every time the stupid temp agency would call me they’d want me to work another data entry job.

The problem with telling them “no” is that it goes on your record and sometimes they won’t call you as quickly as they otherwise might have. Make sure you point out to them that it says RIGHT ON YOUR FUCKING FILE “no phone work,” and ask if they have anything else available.

Temporary companies are very similar, but some are marginally better than others. Work for several at the same time if you can. I had about eight on my “call list” for a few months.

Grrr, I can’t help that I’m very fast on the keypad, with virtually no errors. It doesn’t engage my brain and makes me feel incredibly crappy after only a couple hours. I can’t live without something to think about other than 1290374927352398439 and tab and tab and enter and 0238475942874 and tab and tab and enter and 3208754498487.

Try reading http://www.notmydesk.com/ it helps.

12

Yup, I’m familiar enough with temp agencies to know that this is indeed how they work. “Our disposable employees aren’t allowed to have preferences like a human being! How dare you try to only work at jobs that won’t suck your soul out of you!” And heaven forbid you should leave an assignment before they say it’s okay. I had one lady yelling at me at one assignment - I finished out the week, told the agency that I wasn’t going back and why, and she still had the nerve to ask me if I couldn’t just put up with it for a couple more weeks. Um, no, I can’t.

(Six more weeks, jayjay? You have my sincere sympathy.)

13

Thanks. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to finish it out. It’s my natural inclination to not end an assignment early but I can only take so much time of my brain turning to Cream of Wheat before I have to put a stop to it.

What adds even more layers to the idea of ending an assignment before it expires is that it’s not just MY personal paycheck that I’m abridging by doing it, but the temp agency’s as well. Knowing that my actions can reflect on my agency with the contractee, I’m less inclined to blow the assignment off. Say what you will about temp agencies, if you’re good to them they’ll usually be very good to you. Especially if you’re a super temp who actually has a professional ethic and decent skills.

14

Wow Haj, I AM shocked, we were always so lucky with our temps, many of whom ended up geting hired on permanently.

That being said, I at least am being treated quite nicely. The problem is twofold, the boredom you mentioned (SO true), and the oddness of the culture here, which I recognize is MY, not their, problem, as well as MY perception.

I’m sure that this “good ole boy network/Southern Belle formality” stuff is expected and quite normal to these people, it’s me who is odd I’m sure. :smiley:

It is kind of fun to hear the somewhat surprised southern voices when they hear my somewhat precise, quickly spoken english on the end of the phone when they’re expecting a fellow Texan (i’ve never thought Alaskans had any kind of accent, but I’ve been told a few times that I sound Canadien).

15

Lemme guess: Manpower or Labor Ready?

16

My pet peeves were temp agencies that tried to railroad you into crappy factory jobs.

Me: “Hi, got any work?”
Manpower rep: “Sure. We have this factory position here. 2nd shift. Starts tomorrow.”
Me: “How long is it for?”
Manpower rep: “As long as you want. Bring waders and plenty of skin lotion!”

On the other hand, I’ve also gotten some awesome temp jobs before. My favorite was a filing job I got in an out of the way branch office of the bank. A friend got the same position, too. Because it was out of the way, we could dress however we wanted. During breaks, we’d go outside with a pretty coworker and work on our tans on the lawn. :smiley:

17

oh, my sympathies, everyone ! I am also a temp, I’ve got a pretty sweet assignment now but it’s still soul-sucking - and I’ve paid my crappy-job dues !

There was the assignment that I started on a Wednesday. I was trained by a guy who had started the assignment on Monday and couldn’t handle it because it was too awful. (Office job, the supervisor was one of those people with no skills or personality that only had the job because she’d been there forever and couldn’t do anything else; there was nothing specifically awful about it except, well, everything - there was a fire drill one day and I was thrilled for the opportunity to escape !)

On Thursday the Big Boss pulled me aside and basically said ‘I know this is an awful job, you seem much too clever to stay here, tell me truly, are you really interested in staying, because if not we’ll get someone else from the agency.’

By Friday, another temp had arrived, and me and the ‘old’ guy (with our combined five days experience) had to train her. It was hilarious.

Then there was the time I was hired to work in a hospital, basically the only thing they needed me for was to put together their week’s timetable in Word because their usual secretary was on vacation.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have been to Edmonton, North London, but let me tell you, there ain’t much there. So I had to sit in this office, in a pretty much deserted wing of the hospital, miles from nowhere, doing … absolutely … nothing … even on my lunch break ! My computer (which didn’t have Internet, or even Free Cell, I had to read the Norton Anti-virus software info for something to do!) had a screen saver, with a password which I didn’t know, so if I left my desk for more than fifteen minutes I had to restart my computer upon returning. Gah. The most eventful part of the assignment was trying to find a photocopier, which was a ball because I couldn’t introduce myself to anyone because I didn’t know (a) who I was working for or (b) the name of the office I was coming from.

Oh well. This article makes it all okay !

18

That’s what I’m doing here - I type about three memos a day, and possibly one spreadsheet. Things that could easily be done on their computers by the guys who write them up longhand, if they weren’t supervisors. The last job I was at, we were chronically understaffed, and I worked my butt off every day and loved it - I never had to scrounge around for something else to do, and the days flew by. I’m having a really hard time gearing down for this assignment.

Well, off to check the links provided here. Thanks, guys!

19

I’m a professional temp, and I’ve been at my current gig for 2.5 years, but I’ve been to the nightmare assignments. I left one at lunchtime. It was beyond hideous and my mom was in the hospital, so I felt the time was better spent hanging out with her.

One place I worked hired another temp. His job was editorial assistant (heavy typing). His arm was in a sling. They actually sent a guy whose arm was in a sling.

Stick with the bigger agencies. They try harder to match the temp to the gig.

20

I don’t want to sound ignorant, but I am just curious: why are you all temping? Are you between jobs? Someone mentioned being a professional temp…what led you to such a career path? I always thought temping was pretty much for people between jobs or people fresh out of college looking for jobs. I temped for a few months right out of college as I was looking for a permanent job. It was utterly horrible. I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily wanting to do that.