baby's first temp job
I had two appointments with two different temp agencies on the same day. The first one went okay. I've never temped before, so I didn't know what to expect.
The first meeting was at nine in the morning, and I'm embarrassed to say that I really didn't expect it to be an interview, per se. I thought they'd tell me, "We looked at your resume and we can see that you're clean, here are some jobs we think you would like". The girl who interviewed me seemed to like me well enough, and she sent me home with a password to access the "Prove It!" office aptitude test online. She said she already had a few places in mind for me. Piece of cake.
The second meeting was a little more stressful.
Understanding now what the meeting would entail, I prepped myself for an interview and rehearsed cheery answers to all the typical questions. But instead of hopping right into an interview, I was placed into a dismal room with a stack of paper including a spelling test, a math "test", and a computer older than my high school diploma.
Two hours later I emerged from the room, cheerless and degraded. Now it was time to meet Jan, the world-weary chain smoker/ owner of this particular staffing agency.
Before I sat down for my interview she said "You seem fun. How would you like to spin the Wheel of Fortune at the Kent Cornucopia Days tomorrow?" I searched for a lie and I think she could tell, so she said "We're in a bind. Our spinner just backed out. It's ten dollars an hour but if you do this, I won't forget it".
I said, "Well, tomorrow is actually my last day (a bad lie), so I'll need to call to see. I can get back to you ten minutes after..."
"Call them now"
So I actually "called" and FAKED a conversation where my "boss" said she needed me in the office and I couldn't, but I hung up the phone and she looked so desperate. So I said yes. Now she totally knows that I faked the conversation and tried to get out of it.
"You get a free pie cutter", she said.
"And a t-shirt!", someone chimed from across the hall. Meaning, the entire waiting room had heard me submit to the degradation willingly.
Turns out, I was being more than kind of an asshole. The people I worked with on Friday were smart and fun. The two of them had pre-established cameraderie from working the same stand at the Taste of Tacoma the week before. The girl is a recent college grad who dislikes Christians and has a fondness for the "Ramtha freaks" she went to school with in Yelm, and the guy was a sassy gay ("D'wayne, with an apostrophe, like Mo'nique!") Chit chatting with the girl a few minutes after I got there, I said "I was kind of looking for, you know, office work". She said "Yeah, it's not like any of us really aspire to work at a pie stand at a food festival". (that's another detail, we were in the Edward's Pies tent, across from - no kidding - the GODMOBILE.) This was her third week doing the same thing, and she has a Masters in business from some fancy school in Copenhagen. It was the cleanest, most effective burn my ego has received in months.
Humbled, I started getting really into it and had a good time, though it's hard to be reminded that, like, some jobs actually require you to do work during the entire time that you're paid to be there. I got really sweaty, got some sun, got sore, and then I got a free pie.
Tomorrow I start a job auditing HUD applications for Pierce County. Sounds like dry work, but at least it's something I'm interested in. Trouble is, I've worked with slackers and stoners for so long in e-commerce that I don't really know what "business casual" means anymore. Corey?