Day 47: Temp assignments

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 47: Temp assignments

Yesterday I mentioned that I’m ready to jump out the window because of the awful temp assignment I’m currently doing.

While some people give preference to a full-time job, others think temping is rather cool. By going from one organization to another, one gets to meet a lot of people, the work never gets boring, new things are learned, hours are more or less flexible, and at any time the temp can take time off. It sounds ideal.

Unfortunately, it isn’t. True, temping has a lot of perks, but it also has some down points. There are lots of new beginnings, and new beginnings are usually difficult. 

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Some people temps meet are friendly and helpful, others are rather arrogant. And not all jobs are nice, there have been one or two where I walked out never to return.

Still, the majority of temp assignments are nice and the people are welcoming. Of course, they are welcoming, the temp is there to help out, to make their lives a little easier, to do a job nobody else wants to do.

I remember my very first assignment ever. It was for Flink bakery in Benoni, South Africa. Oh boy, and what an assignment that was.

Every morning the office staff was presented with freshly baked bread with real butter, two types of jam and honey. With it came coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. Not in mugs mind you, but in three silver pots along with dainty cups and saucers.

At 10:30 more coffee and tea, along with a selection of muffins, bagels, and tiny pancakes.

At lunchtime, a trolley was pushed in the office holding again warm bread, and a variety of cold cuts and cheeses. 

Coffee and tea to wash it all down.

At 3:00 once again coffee and tea, this time with a huge plate with slices of cake.

I just loved working there and was more than a little sorry when after three weeks the person I was standing in for returned.

My most interesting assignment was working for Ermetek, a military company where I was responsible for typing manuals for tanks. How to take them apart in case of a problem, and how to put them back together again.

Before starting with the company, I had to take the oath of silence. I couldn’t talk about my job to anyone, not my husband, not any member of my family, not with friends, nobody. Not only that, I had to keep this code of silence for 7 years after leaving the company.

Yet another wonderful assignment was working for Lever Brothers. 

Beautiful offices, wonderful people, interesting work, and the benefits … Every month I received a bag with 3 boxes of washing powder, 3 bottles of fabric softener, 3 bottles of detergent, 5 bars of soap, plus some other little goodies. The bag was so heavy, one of the men had to hoist the bag into my car. The day I left, after my 18-month assignment, my department took me out for dinner, and presented me with a dozen long-stemmed roses.

The bottom line is, with temp work you never know where you’ll end up or what is expected of you. When it’s good, you're sorry having to leave, when it’s bad, you know it’s only for a limited time and then you can wave goodbye.

 

Day 35: Work experiences

My Writing Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 35: Work experiences 

Where it comes to working experiences, I can entertain you with a string of anecdotes. In the early years as an immigrant in South Africa, it was nearly impossible to get a full-time job, but there was plenty of temporary work.

My very first temp assignment was for an industrial bakery. The bookkeeper wanted some time off and I was sent by a temp agency to stand in for her. One of my responsibilities was to calculate the worker’s wages with the Kalamazoo system.

The office, my co-workers and the work itself were all nice enough, but what really stood out were the perks of this job. 

Every morning at 9:00 the office was served freshly brewed coffee, along with a tray of thickly sliced, warm bread. The tray also held a bowl of real butter, as well as peach, apricot and strawberry jam.

At 11:00 more coffee, this time accompanied by a variety of scones, muffins, and cinnamon rolls.

Between 12:00 and 1:00 employees were served sandwiches with a choice of ham, salami, pate, cheese, or one of five salads.

At 3:00 coffee again, this time with a selection of pastries.

At 4:30, the official end of the day, every employee got a free bread.

I was more than a little sorry when after three weeks the bookkeeper returned to the office and my assignment was over.

A few month later, I was sent to a company where – before I was even allowed to enter the premises – I was called into the security office and was asked to take the oath of secrecy. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was soon to find out. 

This particular company built military equipment and my job was to type instruction manuals for the soldiers on how to make minor repairs. 

According to the oath, I was not allowed to discuss my work with anyone outside my department and certainly with nobody outside the company. I was to keep this oath for the duration of my stay and 7 years after I left the company. 

The biggest shock was when I came face to face with a tank. I had seen tanks in the movies and on TV of course, but that didn’t prepare me for seeing one in real life. Not only did I feel dwarfed by this enormous machine but I just about peed my pants when I saw its 9-meter (32 feet) gun pointed straight at me. I was teased mercilessly when I returned to the office as white as a sheet.

Life as a temp isn’t all fun and games though. Here in Toronto, I was sent to one of the big law firms for a three- week assignment. Very uncharacteristic of me, I left after just one hour. 

I knew the assignment wasn’t going to work when I arrived at the office and was shown to the desk of the girl I would be standing in for. 

Clearly, she loved spiders as there were spiders everywhere. She had several 8,5 x 11 colorful pictures of spiders pinned to the walls of her cubicle, two black and orange tarantulas were dangling from the ceiling, where a huge plastic (but very lifelike) black tarantula sat next to her computer.

Looking at the setup, I could feel a chill creeping up my spine, while the hairs on my neck and arms were standing up. 

I was supposed to work here! Me, whose terrified of spiders was supposed to work on a keyboard not 3 inches away from long black spider legs!

I tried to be brave and cautiously, from afar, placed a couple of Kleenex tissues over the black monster next to the keyboard, but it was no use, I knew what was under those tissues and even though I knew the spider wasn’t real, it still gave me the creeps. 

I informed the agency and left. As it turned out, three temps before me had done the very same thing.

In yet another law firm the environment was perfect, but the lawyer was a monster. He had a string of do’s and don’ts that included:

His printing had to be picked up every 20 minutes.

His teabag had to soak in hot water for precisely 45 seconds. Not 44 seconds, not 46 seconds, but 45 seconds.

His mail was to be presented to him in alphabetical order.

Cheques had to be stamped at an angle of exactly 45 degrees.

No work was ever to be visible on my desk.

This, of all things, presented the biggest problem. How does one do paperwork without any papers showing?

If these demands weren’t enough, the lawyer was terrible abusive in language. He screamed and shouted insults at the slightest provocation. If chairs weren’t replaced at exactly the right angle around the boardroom table, he would scream at his people for half an hour or more, getting angrier by the minute. If there were only 5 bottles of water instead of 6, this would set him off too.

When I suggested keeping bottled water in the fridge and only placing the bottles in the boardroom shortly before the meeting, I was on the receiving end of his wrath. To me, this made perfect sense as nobody wants to drink lukewarm water, but apparently, the lawyer didn’t tolerate suggestions.

When he came storming from behind his desk, ready to strike me, I got out a there. Verbal abuse was one thing, but I wasn’t risking physical abuse.

In hindsight, I should have let him. If he had struck me I would have had proof of the abuse. As it was, when I filed a complaint against the lawyer and the first thing the lawyer I contacted asked was “Do you have proof?” 

According to the lawyer, he’d seen this all before and a complaint without proof didn’t stand a chance in court.

Later I learned that he did contact the abusive lawyer who promptly denied everything.

I often played with the idea of putting together an anthology of work experience stories. Do you think this would be a good idea?

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Toronto's Chinatown

People with full-time jobs often envy temporary employees. For temps, the work never gets boring, they work for different companies, do different types of jobs and in the process meet a variety of people. If they like the job, great, if they don’t they can take comfort in the knowledge that it’s only for a limited time.

During my time as a temp I’ve worked all over Toronto and as such know the city like the back of my hand. Or so I thought. I’m currently based on Spadina Avenue and it feels like I’m no longer in Toronto. This part of the city is Chinatown and completely different from everything I'm used to.

The bad news is … Gone are the beautiful tall buildings. Gone are the smart shops and chain stores. Gone are the food courts. Gone are the numerous little green parks with benches. This is an old part of town where mom and pop stores rule.

The good news is … I was finally able to buy a Bonsai tree. For some time now Dieter wanted a Bonsai tree, so last year I wanted to give him one for Christmas. I contacted a few stores around town, but nobody had such trees. Next, I looked online and found a Bonsai tree seller in California. Unfortunately, having the tree shipped to me was going to cost triple the price of the tree itself. So that was a no go.

But here in Chinatown it’s Bonsai tree galore, one shop next to another. So Dieter is finally getting his tree. Let’s hope the little thing stays alive because Dieter doesn’t exactly have green fingers.

A while ago I gave him two plants, a French Lily and something else. When I visited his office a few months later, I didn’t see either one of the plants. When I asked about them, Dieter had to admit that they were both dead.

So next I gave him a cactus, because I feel that he needs something green in his office and you know what … he managed to kill that one too. I mean really, it’s a cactus … how did he manage to kill a cactus?

The change in scenery in Toronto isn’t the only thing that surprised me. Apparently, the distance between point A and point B, was also new to me.

You might remember that last week I lost my glasses on the subway. I contacted the ‘Lost and Found’ department of the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), but no glasses were brought in. I made an appointment with an optometrist, ordered new glasses and last week I could pick them up. So excited was I that I would be able to see properly again that I decided to walk to the optician. BIG MISTAKE!

I walked from Toronto’s Spadina and Queen intersection to Bay and Dundas intersection and as you can see, it is quite a walk. 

I walked and I walked and I walked and when I thought I was nearly there, I had to walk some more. In heels mind you! Not only that, it was a hot humid day. By the time I got to Bay and Dundas, my throat felt like I had crossed the desert, my legs felt like lead and I had blisters on my toes the size of Texas.

Never EVER am I doing that again. Well today my temp job in Chinatown is over anyway. On to better and more familiar terrain.