Temp Agency of DOOM (long)

The BBQ Pit
1

I hate the temp agency I work for, or at least the branches I’ve dealt with. I posted a few of the incidents in this thread, but that only served to whet my appetite to properly Pit them, and really my work experiences in general over the past couple years. The crap the Agency has pulled is really deserving of it’s own thread.

Anyway, I started working for this agency back in 2005, and they started off on a great foot; They had a job lined up for me the day after I applied/tested, and it was $2/hr more than what I had been making at my last job. The assignment was at an insurance firm not too far from where I lived, and the work wasn’t difficult or annoying. I was pleased.

So I’m at the assignment from April to the beginning of July, when I have a sit-down with the manager I’m working under. We both agree that the work load after summer is far too slow to warrant having someone in that position full-time. The manager lets me know that at the end of July they’ll be converting the position to part-time, and that if I want to stay on I’m more than welcome. I couldn’t afford to do anything less than full-time, so we decide to part ways amicably at the end of August. I immediately call the agency and let them know I’ll need a new assignment at the end of the month. Time marches on, and on July 30th I give the agency a call asking where I’ll be working the following week.

They are completely dumbfounded.

They ask me why I’m leaving, etc, and I explain to them that I’d told them about this an entire month in advance. They tell me they’ll get right onto finding me a new position.

An entire week goes by, and finally I get a call from them saying that they have a position open if I’d like it, doing customer service. The pay is at the bottom of my budget range, but I’m desperate for money at that point so I take it. Plus I like customer service, so I figure I’ll go for it. I show up on the first day and they explain that we’ll be calling customers who are past due on paying their invoices. Warning flags go up all over my brain, and the next morning I decide to call the Agency before I go in to see if they have anything else. I call them up and explain that I did not want to do collections (as I’d stated in my interview with them in the first palce), and was there anything else I could be assigned to? They ask me to try it out for a couple months, and if I stay through the end of the assignment they’ll give me a gasp $50 bonus!!! Plus, this company has a reputation of hiring temps pretty quickly. I sigh inwardly, realizing that it’ll probably take another week to find employment if I don’t stick with this, so I go in.

The work is actually a mix of customer service and collections, and we were doing business to business calls, so it wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. So I’m there from August until November, and I decide to ask about potential employment. I’m told that the company is in a budget-crunch and the department can’t hire any actual employees. I shrug and figure that it happens to every company. At the end of December they decide to outsource the temp duties to a call-center, so they release all but a few of us (around 6, we had 20 at our peak). I’m lucky enough to be kept on, but I’m told my assignment is technically ending and I’ll be moved into their sister company to do the same work, only with larger accounts. So I call up the temp agency and ask about my bonus, since my old assignment was ending. They try to give me the run around, but I have a good supply of emails and throw their words back in their face and get my measly fifty bucks.

The company slowly begins to realize that outsourcing is not as efficient as they thought, as they have to start hiring temps again to cover administrative work caused by the call-centers and to handle the escalated calls the call-center transfers to us. The company decides to have their own off-site outgoing sales call-center, and begines hiring salespeople and managers for this new building. Meanwhile our department is still in a budget freeze, even though we’re demonstrably under-staffed.

I decide to ask for a raise, so I call up the Agency in hopes they’ll take a hit on their profit since I doubt the company will be willing to give me a raise. An hour later my manager pulls me aside and asks me if I’m really going to leave if I don’t get a raise. I tell him I never said any such thing to the Agency (which was true, I only asked if I could get a raise), but that I really did think I deserved a raise. So the manager tells me he’ll give me a 1/hr more. The Agency then tries to tell me I'd only be getting .50/hr more. I tell them “That’s weird, because Manager said I was authorized for $1/hr. Are you guys trying to charge him for the extra $1 but not passing it onto me?” They assure me it was just a miscommunication. I know better at this point. For the record, the way it works is that if I want a $1/hr the Agency charges the company a couple dollars more than that per hour. The manager was aware of that, and assures me he didn’t miscommunicate his intent. He even had the new rate they’d be paying written down since he’d confirmed it when he spoke with them.

Anyway, a couple months later they close their call-center and layoff all those salespeople. They all get severence, none of the temps get hired. At this point I’ve been there around 7 months, and there were temps who’d been there at least a year ahead of me. The department is running on a skeleton crew and barely keeping its head above water with the workload. All of the temps are working essential job functions, and there isn’t any room in the department for more budget cuts. The manager apologizes every meeting to the temps for his hands being tied when it comes to hiring.

Eventually one of the full-timers gets sick of her workload, and gives her notice. She leaves, and instead of bringing in another person or using her pay to hire a temp to full-time to boost morale, the managers above our manager’s head decide that we’re fine and we can just redistribute job functions.

Then they hire Mark. Mark is officially a consultant brought in for ridiculous amounts of money to look at why the credit department’s performance isn’t improving by leaps and bounds. Mark decides we need weekly full-department meetings. Mark slowly starts to assert control over the department, and is given increasing amounts of authority by upper management. He decides to sit down with everyone int he department for a “get to know you” meeting. During mine, I ask about being hired. He says that it’s a little early for hiring, as I he’s only been there a month and I haven’t had long enough to prove myself. I point out that I’ve been there for a year (at that point), and I’d be more than happy to have the department manager explain how I’d proven myself as well as gather reports to prove this, as well. He says that he’s only been there for a month and that’s not long enough to make a decision. I am puzzled by this, and explain that I thought Manager was in charge of hiring, him being head of the department and all. Mark laughs it off as though I’m joking, and thanks me for coming by.

I call Agency and tell them to start looking for a new position somewhere else for me. They tell me that it’s all very hush-hush, but they got word the company would be hiring one of us soon. I start looking for a job on my own. Soon afterward, Manager leaves, and the Agency is right; the company hires Mark as the new department head.

At this point my morale is extremely low; I’ve been working at the company as a temp for over a year, and not a single temp has been hired in our department since I started there. I decide there’s no point in trying to impress anyone with my performance, and begin doing the bare minimum while I look for other employment both on my own and through the Agency. The Agency isn’t a big fan of me leaving my position; it would be unprofessional of them to pull me from this assignment and move me to another. On a side note, I discover the joys of watching episodes of TV shows online.

So 5:10pm rolls around on a Friday, and I’m still there because I was finishing up an episode of House online. My cell phone rings; it’s the Agency saying that the company no longer needs my services. They’ve already got a new position lined up for me at some other company. It’s the same distance away, and the pay is $2/hr more. I almost scream with joy. My friend, whom I drive into work as his car is a POS, comes over and I tell him what’s up. He goes over to Mark’s office and gives his notice, stating that he can’t afford to risk driving his car in with the wage he’s making there. He leaves Mark sputtering his office. Apparently Mark never believed my friend when he’d told him many times previously that his car wasn’t reliable and if I went to another company he’d have to leave to.

As we’re driving home the thought occurs to me; what if I’d left AT 5, instead of ten minutes past? I would have had to show up on Monday or had my buddy bring home all my stuff. Friggin Agency.

So I start at this new place, and it’s great. They start asking me about employment after my first week. It figures, as I’d decided to move back to Maine at that point.

So I call the branch of my Agency in Maine 2 weeks before I leave the job I’m at in NH, and ask them what they have available. I get my resume and papers trasnferred to them from the NH office, and finally I get a call from them the day before my last day of work in NH:
Agency: Well, we do have one assignment, but it pays $X an hour.
Me: Is there any way you could talk to them or I could go in for an interview to see if I could convince them to pay maybe $X+1 an hour? $X is at the bottom of my budget and I’d really like to have some extra be able to save for emergencies. Plus, I’m more than qualified for the position.
Agency: Sure! I’ll ask them and call you back.

So my last day of work rolls around, and since I’m working I can’t answer my cell phone when it rings (at 5pm, for the record). I check my voicemail and get the following:
Agency: Hey Cricket! The company wouldn’t go for $X+1, so we gave the job to someone else. We’ll keep looking for you, though!

What the…? At least give me the chance to turn it down! I never said I wouldn’t take it at $X! ANY job is better than no job! Since I’m working the 11-8pm shift and it’s already 6:30pm, I can’t call them until Monday.

I call them on Monday but they haven’t got anything open. I call every day asking about jobs they had listed on their website. Nothing. I get a call from them mid-week:
Agency: Hey Cricket! We do have a position open if you’d like it; it’s 11am-4pm Mon-Fri… interested?
Me: That’s only 20 hours a week, and I really can’t afford to work less than 40.
Agency: well it would just be until we could find some extra hours on top of that for you.
Me: Well, since it’s 11-4 it would be really tough to find additional hours, and I’d never be able to get a full-time position anywhere, as I know you guys won’t reassign someone while they’re working at another assignment already.
Agency: (Uneasy laugh) I guess you know how we work!
Me: Yep.
Agency: well, we’ll keep looking, then!

They finally find an assignment for me at the end of the week, even if it’s only going to last a month. As the month goes by, I’ve learned my lesson and I’m already on their website looking at jobs. I see a posting for reception for a decent wage, and call them up and ask about it, as I’m more than qualified. They explain that it IS available, but they must have put the wrong wage up there. I try to reach through the phone to strangle the guy, but it doesn’t work. I take the job.

Lo and behold, it’s not reception at all. I actually don’t use the phone at all. Instead, I’m doing data entry and filing. Oh joy of joys, I’m so glad I got exactly what they described on their website, for the wage they posted it at! Either they completely lied on the website, or they put me in an entirely different position.

I’m thoroughly discouraged at this point; I’ve got 8 years of customer service experience, including supervisory experience, I’ve got a couple years’ worth of an IT degree, and I can’t seem to get a job anywhere. I’m cursed to be a temp for the rest of my days, it seems. :frowning:

P.S. My buddy ended up getting a several dollar an hour raise to get him to stay, and then a month later they hired him and gave him another raise. I’m glad my leaving that company helped him out :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I worked as a temp for years. I also worked in the temp agency office.

My experience was that it does not matter how long you work for them, one bad experience and they will never place you again. (I worked at a place that was so cold I had to wear gloves, while typing. After leaving there, with notice, that agency never placed me again, I had been working for them for over a year.)

You are merely a paycheck for them. The placement agent only cares about you as long as you show up for a job that will get them paid. It is worth it to THEM to have you working any job. Enough drones funnelling into your paycheck and you make a damn fine living.

The ads that they post are not real jobs. I worked for a very well regarded company that would routinely post ads for jobs we did not have because we lacked resumes in that area. Any keyword type jobs (CNA, CPA, LPN etc) were hotbeds for fake job postings.

As soon as you realize that they don’t give a flying rats patootie about you ever finding a job, you’ll feel much better. Treat them the way they treat you. Register with as many agencies as you can, take the first/best jobs you can.

Don’t, Do Not believe the Hype.

3

Like Auntbeast, I too worked as a permanent employee at a temp agency. It was my job through college. She hit it dead on. I guess it’s the same in Florida as it was in Minnesota.

4

What the others have said. I too have been a permanent employee in a temp agency. Their job is not to care about the temps, but to make money from the client companies. And nobody in an agency ever wants to be asked for a raise, nor do they want to lower their markup.

5

How does wearing gloves make someone an undesirable employee? Unless you mean boxing gloves. Suspicion of leprosy?

6

I think she meant that she quit that job because of the working conditions (too cold), and the temp agency refused to place her again because she quit the earlier job, even though she had good reason to do so.

7

Ah, yes, thanks. When I take off my idiot glasses, it reads much more clearly.

8

Gundam, you have my most sincere sympathy - and I’ve been doing contract for quite a few years so I’ve run into more agencies than I really care to remember.

If you want out of temping, I take it you’ve tried the standard routes - keyworded CVs online and active, register with multiple agencies (if your contract with this one will allow it), going through the specialist boards, etc.

And I will tell you now, as someone who has been both hiring and hired, from the client side that the agency does not care about you. With regards to agencies, look at for your own interests, because they certainly won’t. They also don’t care much about the clients either, as long as they get paid.

9

[Lilly Tomlin]
*We don’t care about our employees.
We don’t have to.

We’re the Temp Agency*.

[/Lilly Tomlin]

10

Yes, you read it right. Although I had been a reliable, steady worker for them, calling to be taken off a job due to unbearable conditions made them never, ever, place me again. My agent had always told me how great I was, she could send me anywhere, blah blah blah. She wouldn’t take or return my calls after that.

If you quit a position you are taking money out of the agents pocket. They treat it like you stole it from them.

They are sales weasels through and through. No matter what they say, they will take any job contract they can get and no matter what, they will beg, barter and cajole you into taking anything they have, no matter the pay, the job, the distance, anything.

They can help you find a job if you treat them like they aren’t real people. Sure be nice, swear you haven’t/wouldn’t register with anyone else, call when you should, go through all the hoops. Use them.

11

So,yeah, another thing about temping. The agency hates for you to talk about money with the client because there is a mark up and the higher the better. They don’t want the temp to know what the client is paying and they don’t want the client to know what the temp gets of that. Up the bill rate a dollar and pass that whole dollar onto the temp? The only way that will ever happen is if the client threatens to pull its business. If they perceive that the temp has caused that trouble for them, they will let them work out the assignment and never call them again.

Unless they’re desperate. Then they’ll beg.

12

It is true that the agency does not want you to discus rates with your client supervisor. However, for the majority this is due to federal co-employment guidelines. Client supervisors negotiating any pay rate isses with the temp employee opens the client company up to multiple co-employment issues which could require the client company to pay all kinds of benefits to the temporary employee. Supervisors who cross this line have not been properly trained on employment laws and the risk to which they are exposing their employer.

As for the passing along the $1.00 increase. The only way the agency can pass along the full $1.00 is if the client allows the bill rate to increase $1.00 plus the payroll tax and liability insurance burden (both of which are calculated as a % of payroll).

Many accounts the pricing is negotiated on a flat markup%. If the pay rate increases $1.00, then the bill rate must increase $1.00 plus markup. So if the client only allows the bill rate to increase $1.00, then the pay rate will be factored accordingly.

Depending on the account and how the contract is configured, there may be a built-in calculation for future pay increases where only the payroll tax burden is factored in, but that’s a best case scenario.

13

I just needed to rant, and since this is an excellent example of why agencies should not be trusted I’ll add it here.

Imagine going to the doctor, a few weeks after your checkup when you’ve started a new role. The doctor finds a few odd issues, investigates, and the long and the short of it is that the new job is literally killing you. His advice is to resign at once - if required he will write a medical note to cut your leave period. You phone the company to explain the situation - they are shocked but understanding. You phone the agency to explain the situation.

“Oh but can’t you just work around it?”

14

I had worked for a temp agency twice:

  1. Be highly skilled to answer the phones and solve tech issues. Ok, I can do that. Oh, and it was for blenders, dishwashers and such. I told them, after 2 days, that it was really not the tech job I’m capable of, they gave me over to the other side of the house - DVD players, TVs, and cell phones. It sucked!
  2. I got to work, almost, for the same company that fired me and forced me to scramble to find a job with the temp agency. They had switched names. Turns out I almost made about $7 more an hour. After I was soundly rejected, I made sure to let everyone at the job know that the temps were coming in at significantly more than the company was willing to pay the employees. A few left after that, suspiciously :dubious:
15

I keep about five to ten temp agencies looking for me at any one time. Going with just one does not seem like an option. I call once a week, sometimes twice if I’m feeling really desperate.

Don’t tell them you’re registered with anyone else, they won’t get you a job.
Do not complain to them about a job you are doing, they do not care and will not do anything.
Don’t give them notice. They will tell you to go ahead and leave.
Don’t bother telling them you will not do a certain task. They don’t care, and will offer you those jobs anyway.
Don’t negotiate salary. Never works right.

Do accept a job as soon as they offer it. Another person in their agency is probably offering it to someone else that exact instant.
Do take in stuff to read and do while you’re at the job. Lots of temp jobs are mainly filling a chair.
Do treat the job as it is – a temporary job which will never go anywhere. Don’t work your heart out, don’t try to impress people, don’t be loyal. Just relax and act like you will not be working there for long – because most likely you won’t!

Elysian, temp worker for about 2 years

16

Based on my year as a temp about five years ago, this is absolutely true! The whole “temp-to-hire” b.s. is a con to keep you motivated about 95% of the time.

17

Isn’t this rather a self-fulfilling prophecy? :dubious:

  • BWP: permanent employee of the last company she temped for.
18

Nah, those don’t apply in any of the places where I’ve worked through any kind of agency. The federal guidelines may be a convenient excuse for US-based places, but really, the biggest problem is fear that you’ll negotiate them out.

19

I once applied for The Perfect Position through an agency. I got to their office, tested, filled out forms, and then they dropped the bomb: “Oh, we forgot to put in the ad that you need to speak Chinese.”

Fuckers. I wish I was my brother…who actually DOES speak Chinese…so I could have busted them.

I walked out.

20

Those jobs do exist; I was hired full time from my first temp job. However, it tends to be jobs that have high turnover / hiring problems. I wasn’t sorry (ended up getting management and technical experience and getting a wicked better job) but I’m glad I did a good job when I started. I wouldn’t kill myself over it though. IMHO, most reasonably smart people can shine in a temp position in an office with reasonably little effort by just showing up, following instructions, and not goofing off too obviously.