Tell me about temping...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So right now I’m working on a big freelance project for a client of mine, but when that is finished I need to get more steady income coming in and I thought a temp agency may be the way to go. I tried this several years ago before I’d gone back to school and they said that even though I aced all of the tests, the fact that I had no experience (I’d been a stay-home mom for 9 years) they couldn’t use me. Since then, however, I’ve both held a job and finished a bachelor’s degree, so hopefully that will mean that they can use me.

Anyway, I have some anxiety over the whole process of temping. I’m a little nervous and awkward in new situations and I hate not knowing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m terrified that I’ll be put in a room with a pile of work and little to no instruction on how to do it, blah blah blah.

So please tell me your experiences and what I might expect if I start temping. Thanks!

2

I temped for one summer before going to grad school and I think your fears are pretty much unfounded. I think I worked at three different places that summer.

  1. Assembling membrane filters for dialysis machines - That was kind of weird but the other guy and I were supervised pretty closely. I recall it lasted about a week.

  2. Packaging cheap halloween costumes and decorations for distribution - That was mindless and boring as hell. Just had to put one of each type of a product in a box and tape it up. Not eactly rocket science.

  3. File work at a insurance company - Put stuff in files and pulled stuff from files. If I had a question there were plenty of people to ask. I was only there a month or maybe two and they took me out for a drink the day I left, so I guess they were pretty pleased with the job I did.

I would think that most places would not have high expectations for a temp beyond showing up and being able to follow simple directions.

3

I temped for a couple of years before being made permanent at my current temp place. It’s been a good experience for me, but I’m sure others will come along with the nightmare stories soon.

My experience has been that you are not thrown into the job and expected to just get on and do it. Every workplace I’ve temped in has recognised that I am new to their company and don’t know their way of doing things, so I’ve always had people willing to help me out.

The only thing I would say is that you probably need to be willing to do some ‘low pay’ assignments to start with. I did a couple of two week stints doing very low level secretarial stints where I was mostly answering the phone and photocopying. I think it was to prove to the temp agency that I was willing to do what I was told and would be reliable. I was then given increasingly higher level assignments.

4

Some input from someone on the hiring side of things:

I’ve probably hired 50 temps at the various jobs I’ve been at. Usually it’s because of a specific project. Sometimes it’s because I need time to get a new permanent headcount approved. I personally hate hiring temps, because I’m rarely able to properly reward them for hard work. If it’s a full timer, I have pay raises, title raises, bonuses etc to use, but temp staff almost never get to share in the fruits of their labor.

Probably the hardest aspect of working as a temp is that you may not be given any actual responsibility for anything. Many firms are reluctant to hand over any sort of responsibility to a ‘temp’. This can be very frustrating for the competent! And you’ll often not really get any credit for stuff; that gets doled out to the full-timers.

It is true that at some firms I saw staff specifically instructing temp staff to not ‘stand out’ too much (or it’d make the full-timers look bad :rolleyes: I wouldn’t recommend anyone temp at a Japanese firm unless you want to be treated like you’re a third-class citizen.

But most of the time you’ll probably be treated like any other employee. Unless you end up at a really crappy company, you’ll almost always be given lots of instruction, and you’ll be expected to ask loads of questions. The best temps I’ve worked with were quick learners and were flexible. Most temps end up with the ‘well, I’m just a temp’ attitude, and won’t make suggestions etc - partially, perhaps, because the full-timers end up with all the responsibility and credit - but the very best temps I’ve worked with haven’t been afraid to pipe up.

If you like meeting new people, working in new environments, temping could be quite interesting. You might end up with fairly basic, ‘routine’ jobs, which may or may not be what you’re after.

By and large I’ve had very good experiences with temps - I’ve turned at least 10 in to full-time employees, 3 or 4 have moved with me when I changed jobs. And one in particular ended up moving in with me after I quit the company…

5

Thanks for the input from the hiring side! Very interesting!

6

I’ve worked at temp jobs for the last 2 and a half years.

Yes, you will be given all the crap jobs.

Yes you will be excluded from all the company activities.

Yes you will be thrown into a situation and get no instructions how to do it. I TOTALLY disagree you will be given a lot of help. This is a MAJOR complaint among all temps.

This is especially bad now as there are so many people looking for work, the companies demand temps that don’t need any help or can do things with no instructions. In reality as bad as this may seem, you get used to it fast and learn to adapt. In a month you’ll be able to do this easily

I have found you don’t get treated as employees. I’ve worked at places where you can’t use the company cafeteria, you can’t use the bathroom for regular employees, you have to be searched though the other employees don’t, and the list goes on.

The bigges problem I found with it, is the lack of jobs and the employers know it. In normal times temping isn’t so bad, why? Because it works both ways. If you get a horrible employer you simply don’t go back the next day and you’re temp agency puts you somewhere else. So in the end it ain’t bad.

But here’s what happened to me. I have background in IT and accounting.

I would get sent to answer phones and paid minimum wage. OK fair enough. I’d get there and the company would be like “OK fix our computer.” I’d say “No, you pay me minimum wage to answer phones, if you want an IT guy call the temp agency and they’ll send someone over to do that. Of course you’ll pay a LOT more.”

In normal times, the temp agency would be furious as they’re being cheated. (Though I get only minimum wage, the temp agency is probably getting $11 or $12 and hour from the company). But the temp agency was telling me, “Just do it or we’ll find someone else who will.”

Last October I gave up with this attitude. I was an asst controller, and I have a TON of experience in bugets. Well Sept/Oct are key months for working on budgets.

Once again, I was sent to file papers and paid minimum wage. Fair enough. Once again, I was told, don’t do that, go help our accounting manager to do the budget.

Evidently these companies fired their controllers as a cost saving measure and now are in deep stuff as the accounting manager has no experience with budgets. So they go to a temp agency and demand to see resumes. The ones with budget experience, they hire as clerks and then “reassign” them.

By then I was out of work so long I had no choice. Temp agencies normally would be up in arms, as they could make a LOT more money temping me out an asst controller rather than me as clerk.

When I told them, they shrugged and says “That’s the way it is now.”

Right now I’ll tell you about my worst temp job. It’s what I have now. I am active with 15 agencies and only one can get me work for more than one day.

This is overnights at a factory where they make generic drugs. I get minimum wage.

When I first started I got a six week contract. I though great, at least it’s steady.

Then business slowed and they cut people. OK fair enough.

Then they said, “Too slow at the factory,” you have to call each day to find out if there is work for that night. OK fair enough. The office opens at 9am and by 9:02am all the slots are filled :slight_smile:

Now we don’t even get that. You have to show up at the factory at 10:30pm and THEN they pick you or not. If you don’t get picked for that night, you go home, no pay. It’s irritating to spend $2.25 each way on a subway/bus to go to a place to get no work. So that’s $4.50 and when you’re out of work that’s a bit of change if you don’t get picked for two weeks straight.

And they often send you home after 4 hours. Oh great so now it’s 2:30am and you’re stuck out there. No busses run at 2:30pm. So you sit around till 5:30am when the busses start again.

Now I know I painted this grim. Temping just ain’t what it was.

It USED to be really nice. I used to be with Robert Half / Accountemps.

They would bend over backwards to find me work at my convenience and I got at least $15/hour on every job. You got paid every week (nice when you’re trying to catch up on bills). And these temp jobs I took when I wanted EXTRA money.

But with so many highly skilled people out of work, nothing is like it used to be.

So go ahead and try it. You might get lucky. :slight_smile: