being a temp
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Well, I've been temping for quite a long time now, it fills up the space between sleeping and and smoking and can get in the way of all those things you could do if you were unemployed. And really really rich.
Lets face it nobody works because they want to, well some of us might but I'm definitly not doing so at the moment. Rent, food, bills, my increasing alcahol habits all suck at the bank balance and prevent me from completing my magical mystical quest of being less in debt than when I left university.
I temp because I'm a really good typist and I discovered that this little skill means that I could just walk into a temping agency and get work. Or more importantly get paid.
I've done loads of jobs, mostly for just one week whilst some secetary is on holiday/pregnant/non-existant I've worked for government, hospitals, solicitors, stokebrokers, bankruptcy firms and all manner of captialism in this sprawling smoke generator just outside of London. Its all right.
There are bascially four types of secetarial temping work:
1. Free internet access in a swish office with no work to do
(I am sitting in one of these jobs at this very moment in time. I have typed two letters of less than 100 words in total since 9am)
This is by far and away the best way to be employed. Its a great job and you tend (just bby the nature of being a temp) to be left to yourself to read about aids conspiracies and current events. Check your email, play some online game, buy stuff noone's going to care, and if they do the worse they can do is just fire you, in which case you can go to the temping agency and get another job. Or if not, go to a different agency, there's enough of them.
2. No internet access in a scabby office with no work to do.
This is very very very very very very dull. I have worked in places where I have had no net access, no book or magazine and hence have become the freecell champion of my own mind. Sometimes you find yourself doubting your own existance.
3. No internet access and so much work to do its scary
Its mentally draining to audio type, and audio type you will. This is all right though, as you've really got nothing else to do and if its the right kind of work (i recently transcribed interviews) the time goes really fast and before you've really woken you your eating your dinner. If there is nothing else to do, the mentally draining part of it can actually be a benefit, it sucks your soul enough to turn you into an automation for seven hours. Automations don't feel the passage of time.
4. Internet access but so much work to do its annoying
I hate this type of job. Enough stimulation to remind you you are a real person, but not enough time to do anything about it. You end up feeling harrased and hungry and nicotine withdrawn. The bus will suck everyday and you will always end up getting into work early and leaving late. I end up spending my time trying to work out a non-fatal injury that will get me home without losing face, oh and typing. Lots and lots of typing. As in the above your wrists will hurt by the end of the week.
There are a few global aspects too, audio typing is a nightmare, mainly because most people are really bad at dictation. You try transcribing something that has been spoken at 100 words a minute with the microphone muffled by a beard, a thumb, hair, bloody mindedness. Add the general low quality of those crappy dictaphones (there just isn't a good quality one on the market it seems), the fact that you have to wear headphones and be isolated from the rest of the world to the surprising assumption that you will be aware of client's addresses, the technical terminology and the name of the person who left the tape on your desk in some kind of mission impossible style hidden manner its amazing anyone could do that full time.
Oh yeah, lets not forget that it is mandatory in any office to give the temp the 5 year old computer with the dodgy mouse/keyboard/monitor that gives you cancer.
Temping has given me a bit more respect for secetaries and the like, they put up with and encounter a lot of nonsense.
I'm quite pleased I'm only doing this to have enough money to get my postgrad. (Oh yeah, there is also a general assumption that you are at the same sort of level of intellegence as some sort of crustation)
anyway, I've just been given some work to do. So I'd better go and do it, after all when all is said and done I really need the money.
Lets face it nobody works because they want to, well some of us might but I'm definitly not doing so at the moment. Rent, food, bills, my increasing alcahol habits all suck at the bank balance and prevent me from completing my magical mystical quest of being less in debt than when I left university.
I temp because I'm a really good typist and I discovered that this little skill means that I could just walk into a temping agency and get work. Or more importantly get paid.
I've done loads of jobs, mostly for just one week whilst some secetary is on holiday/pregnant/non-existant I've worked for government, hospitals, solicitors, stokebrokers, bankruptcy firms and all manner of captialism in this sprawling smoke generator just outside of London. Its all right.
There are bascially four types of secetarial temping work:
1. Free internet access in a swish office with no work to do
(I am sitting in one of these jobs at this very moment in time. I have typed two letters of less than 100 words in total since 9am)
This is by far and away the best way to be employed. Its a great job and you tend (just bby the nature of being a temp) to be left to yourself to read about aids conspiracies and current events. Check your email, play some online game, buy stuff noone's going to care, and if they do the worse they can do is just fire you, in which case you can go to the temping agency and get another job. Or if not, go to a different agency, there's enough of them.
2. No internet access in a scabby office with no work to do.
This is very very very very very very dull. I have worked in places where I have had no net access, no book or magazine and hence have become the freecell champion of my own mind. Sometimes you find yourself doubting your own existance.
3. No internet access and so much work to do its scary
Its mentally draining to audio type, and audio type you will. This is all right though, as you've really got nothing else to do and if its the right kind of work (i recently transcribed interviews) the time goes really fast and before you've really woken you your eating your dinner. If there is nothing else to do, the mentally draining part of it can actually be a benefit, it sucks your soul enough to turn you into an automation for seven hours. Automations don't feel the passage of time.
4. Internet access but so much work to do its annoying
I hate this type of job. Enough stimulation to remind you you are a real person, but not enough time to do anything about it. You end up feeling harrased and hungry and nicotine withdrawn. The bus will suck everyday and you will always end up getting into work early and leaving late. I end up spending my time trying to work out a non-fatal injury that will get me home without losing face, oh and typing. Lots and lots of typing. As in the above your wrists will hurt by the end of the week.
There are a few global aspects too, audio typing is a nightmare, mainly because most people are really bad at dictation. You try transcribing something that has been spoken at 100 words a minute with the microphone muffled by a beard, a thumb, hair, bloody mindedness. Add the general low quality of those crappy dictaphones (there just isn't a good quality one on the market it seems), the fact that you have to wear headphones and be isolated from the rest of the world to the surprising assumption that you will be aware of client's addresses, the technical terminology and the name of the person who left the tape on your desk in some kind of mission impossible style hidden manner its amazing anyone could do that full time.
Oh yeah, lets not forget that it is mandatory in any office to give the temp the 5 year old computer with the dodgy mouse/keyboard/monitor that gives you cancer.
Temping has given me a bit more respect for secetaries and the like, they put up with and encounter a lot of nonsense.
I'm quite pleased I'm only doing this to have enough money to get my postgrad. (Oh yeah, there is also a general assumption that you are at the same sort of level of intellegence as some sort of crustation)
anyway, I've just been given some work to do. So I'd better go and do it, after all when all is said and done I really need the money.
