I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I tend to be a little bit lazy. Therefore, in the past I have used temp agencies to find a job when I was in need of employment. Well to be honest, laziness was only part of it; I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to doing things out of my comfort zone. As ridiculous as it seems (at least to me), I have a lot of trouble putting myself in new or unfamiliar situations. That is why temp agencies are such a good fit for me when it comes to job hunting. All I had to do was go in, fill out an application, give them a resume (for office positions) and wait for them to call me back. There was no searching in the paper, no driving around town, or dropping off resumes and going through multiple interviews. Many companies get new employees from temp agencies, so there was always a chance of the temp job becoming full time employment.
I have worked all kinds of temp jobs over the years. Some were good and some sucked horribly. Being a temp is not exactly the most glamorous position to be in. When you're in an office you feel like an outsider to your workmates. Most companies have a set amount of time that you are going to be working for them so you don't have time to really get to know any of your coworkers. The people I have worked with were always nice, but again, when you're only there for a week or two, no one is really looking to make friends. Using someone else's desk, and not wanting to move anything, can get very annoying. Other than the people you directly work with, barely anyone even knows your name. You are just "the temp". Sure -- you get invited to have some cake for someone's birthday or anniversary, but you feel like no one really wants you there. It is hard to celebrate when you have no idea who the person is that you are celebrating with cake.
I worked 5 or 6 office jobs in my temp days and the company I have worked at for the last 12 years started as a temp job. Actually there were two companies that did the same exact thing and were competitors in our town. I got hired at one as a temp and worked there for about two weeks. While I was there I got a call from another temp agency (yes, I was registered with three at the time). They offered me a position at my current assignment's competitor for a dollar more an hour. Needless to say, I regretfully informed the company I was working for that our relationship was over. It wasn't them, it was me... I headed over to start at the other place.
I worked at the new company for about three months in their pagination department and it got to the point where I wanted to become a full time employee. Benefits sounded like a cool idea. Sick days? Vacations? 401K? Those are things you don't get from a temp agency. I wanted to stay in the department I was working in but they did not have any daytime openings. I ended up taking a job in a different department working 5:00 am to 1:30 pm. I thought it was going to be great. Getting home in the early afternoon sounded amazing. Just think of all the things I could do with my afternoons free. Well, the problem with this situation, which I quickly came to realize, was that I had to be to work 5:00 am EVERY morning.
After a month of this I began to realize that this situation was not going to work. I began looking for another job and I saw in the paper a position in the company I had temped with originally -- in their pagination department. It was a daytime position and I applied. I ended up getting the job and started working there again. About two months after I switched companies again, the company I left bought the company I was working for. Geez, if they wanted to keep me that badly they could have just offered me the daytime position I wanted in the first place. So I got to keep my job, and it was in the department I wanted to be in, working the hours that I wanted. I guess it all worked out in the end.
So far I have talked only about office jobs. When there weren't any cushy desk jobs available, I was often forced to take whatever they had. Several summers while I was in college were spent doing jobs I was thankful I would never have to do full time. I washed dishes for two summers, and I don't mean the soapy sink full of water, wiping, rinsing, drying and putting away dishes like at home. This was loading racks, stuffing them in a machine, unloading the racks at the other end of the machine -- where the dishes came out at about 200 degrees -- and stacking them for someone else to put away. This was also at a posh resort, where I can still remember the management telling us that employees were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks that the customers used. We were supposed to walk through the parking lots to avoid contact with the guests. Nice! At least they let us eat pastries off of the pastry cart once breakfast was over so I was able to let the whole parking lot thing slide.
One summer I worked on the night clean up crew at the same resort where I had washed dishes. We had a great boss who told us that management gave us 8 hours to clean up the place, but it did not take 8 hours. We were to do what he told us to do, then find a good place to hide and chill out for the night. Fountain soft drinks were free at the numerous bars in the resort and I would often find the crew chilling at the poolside bar, drinking soda and relaxing. My favorite spot was outside on the lawn chairs overlooking Lake George. If I got there at sunrise, the view was amazing! Our boss told us that we had to make sure the hiding spot was good because if any of the other departments saw us, they would probably report us and that would ruin it for everybody. It was a good summer, except for working nights. I hated working nights!
I also got to spend two summers in a row erecting giant tents for an annual motorcycle rally. That was nasty and exhausting. Unloading trucks filled with giant aluminum girders in the rain is a memory from one of the years. I did not have a coat that day and during my lunch I ended up trying to dry my shirt with the hand dryer at McDonald's. It was a lot of long hours and hard work -- two things I have always tried to avoid in my employment history. One of the few highlights was the fact that I got to use a jack hammer for the first (and last) time. This was a special one that had a cup at the end that we had to lift and put on the tent stakes to drive them into the ground. I still vibrate everytime I think about it.
I did landscaping once, which equated to my carrying giant stacks of bricks around as my boss built a walkway at an Albany Golf course. Another summer was spent resurfacing tennis courts around the Lake George area. Most were clay courts and there was a lot of raking and hauling large bags of artificial clay around. I also worked a day at a manufacturer of aluminum soda cans. All I did was stand around and watch the machine drop giant stacks of cans on a pallet. My job was to make sure the machine did it right and tap any cans that were askew back into place. Snore fest! I am not going to mention every job I did; that would take way too much time and be as boring as hell.
And now I will tell you about the job where I had one of the most embarrassing moments of my employment history. As far as I know, no one noticed, so I guess I should say it had the potential to be monumentally shaming. This goes back to a time when I was out of college, married and out of work. I needed to get some money into the household. My name was in at a couple of temp agencies when I got a call offering me a position at a large printing company. I really did not want to take it but, when you're desperate, you take whatever you can get. They told me when and where to show up, and that I needed to wear steel toed work boots (never a good sign when you are a wanna be office worker). I managed to borrow a pair of boots from one of my in-laws. They were about two sizes too big but they worked. I got dressed and showed up, feeling a bit like a clown in my giant shoes.
They took us (there were several other temps that were hired as well) to different machines and explained what we were supposed to do. The machine printed out whatever was on the run and the paper piled up in a special area. I would stand there and watch the pile grow until it got to a certain height. The machine had a marker that would tap the stack where we were supposed to grab it. We then had to carry our little pile over to a pallet and stack it. The folded ends had to point out, because if not, the whole stack could fall over and make a mess. I screwed it up once. Oh well, it was my first time. It was a lot more tiring than one would expect and there was a lot of bending over. Every now and then they would stop the machines, either to change runs or because the machine broke. When the printer was down we were supposed to sweep and clean up our work area.
It was one of these down moments, when I was cleaning up, that I bent over to pick up a scrap of paper when I heard this terrible ripping sound. With the sound came a refreshing breeze in the region of my groin. I looked down and saw that there was a very large rip in my pants. Now this was bad, because of something many people know about me -- I will share now with those who don't -- I stopped wearing underwear somewhere in late high school. Don't ask me why I chose this route. Maybe because all the guys in porn movies never wore undies and I thought that was all part of the secret for making these sort of encounters happen, or maybe my equipment just needs to breathe, I don't know. Commando is just the way I roll!
So there I was on my first day at a new job, and every time I bent over, my equipment was in danger popping out. Being a good worker, I kept going, though. Besides, there were only a few hours left in the day, so I decided to walk carefully, to bend with my knees like a proper young lady and avoid my coworkers as much as possible. I made it through the shift without anyone seeming to notice and headed quickly to my car. As soon as I bent to get into the vehicle the crotch of my pants ripped out the rest of the way. There was no longer any point in hiding. There was my junk, for all to see, except that now I was in my car, safe from prying eyes. I looked around the car for inspiration and found a plastic bag from a local convenience store. I tucked it my pants to cover everything up and headed home.
The entire ride home I prayed I did not break down or get pulled over. I have owned a large collection of shitty, barely legal vehicles and I thought for sure this was the time the car would die, or I would get busted by the police for a loud muffler or something. I played out the scene of the cop coming up to my window in my head, asking me for my license and registration and why I had a Stewart's bag stuffed in my crotch. Well, the scene would have been better if it was a female police officer and then it turned into a porno like I always fantasized about, but I was way too scared to think about that at the time. The other scene running through my head was of me walking down the side of the road, after the car died, wearing the plastic bag over my pants. In my mind, I had ripped two leg holes and was wearing them like shorts. Thankfully for me, nothing happened. I got home, told the story and everyone laughed.
My wife at the time told me that the other temp company had called while I was working and had two job interviews lined up. After the stress and the aches all over from a day of "hard" (well, hard to someone as soft as me) labor I decided not to go back. Any job that could do that to a pair of pants was nothing I wanted anything to do with! All kidding aside, temp companies are a good way of getting your foot in the door and got me jobs when I needed them. My experiences with temping also introduced me to some interesting people, reminded me why I went to college in the first place (so I would not have to do any of the physical jobs I did as a temp), and gave me some funny stories to tell.
Hilarious!
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