i used to be temporary
at least if you're a prostitute you can dictate your own hours and take a vacation whenever you damn well please. if you're unfortunate enough to be 'temporary' then you're still expected to arrive at work at the exact same time every morning, wear the horrible, horrible clothes that everyone else in the office wears and smile at the people you want to kill. you know deep down inside they really deserve a better death than the one you want to give them.
i was a temp for three years. one of those years i was the administrative assistant to the administrative assistant of the president of borland software. i would answer all the phone calls after they reached the receptionist, but before they got to the president's administrative assistant - i was the purgatory for the president's phone calls.
after a year of loyal service, showing up with a plastered smile on my face and still waiting for the president to remember my name, i decided that it was time for me to take a vacation. i packed up my bags, lathered myself up in mosquito repellant and spent three weeks biking maui. what an experience! those three weeks had completely erased the filth and dirt of working for The Man. the day after i returned from maui, i showed up for work, penniless and tan with my plastered on smile.
i was surprised to find out that my card key didn't work. i called my supervisor from the main lobby and she sadly informed me that all the temps had been laid off while i was away. she said she was sorry to put me in this predicament and assured me that she would give me gushing reviews to my temp agency. if security hadn't been watching my every move as i was emptying out my desk, i would have given them gushing with my letter opener.
i wasn't rolling in cash when i returned from my vacation. i really needed the work and there's not a whole heckuva lot going on in santa cruz unless i wanted to sell pot to the university kids. not that i didn't rule it out - there's plenty of money in a demanding economy such as the university of california in santa cruz. those hippies up at the university don't want to admit that they have secret lives where their parents drive bmw's and their sisters go to princeton.
before i could go out and do my happy illegal moneymaking thing, the temp agency called and told me that they wanted me to sell drugs. actually, they wanted me to work in the advertising department for a large internet company, which was pretty much the same thing to me, except that i get free sodas at the internet company.
at the time nobody had ever heard of cisco systems except for people with glasses thicker than mine. it was supposed to be my job to make sure that the people without glasses knew about cisco as well. there was always the tantalizing attraction that during my service as 'long-term temp' they might actually *hire* me and i could get health care!
i wound up spending two years as a temporary for that bastard company. all the regular employees around me were rolling in stock options and buying tacky clothes to go with their hard to maintain cars and every few months i would go to my supervisor to see how much closer they were to hiring me. every few months she would tell me that it was going to be very soon.
the crazy thing is that it wasn't just me that was going through this employment limbo. all the other temps in my department were trying to get hired as well, but we would always come face to face with a huge invisible wall and the omnipotent ferocious god known as hr. hr was this borg-like entity that worked behind the wall and dictated when and where temps could get hired. they held the future of our health and well-being in their hands and they couldn't possibly give a fuck. my supervisors would constantly tell me how valuable i was and how hard they were trying to get me hired, but time and time again they would fail miserably.
things are better now. i'm working at the company that i've wanted to work at since i was seven and they're paying me to do what i've wanted to do since i was in high school. frankly, i think it's absolutely incredible, but i don't want to tell anyone that because they might notice that i'm living a pretty good life and take it all away from me. i don't know if it's because i paid my dues or if it's because i've had good luck, but it's pretty awesome either way. the best thing about it is that my urge to kill has subsided significantly and i am no longer a threat to those around me.
excellent.
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