write about my temp job

It’s almost been a year at my temp job. It’s funny how things change. A month ago I was sent to work for another department and I thought that the move was permanent. And then I found out I was being recalled back to my old group, so now I’m back where things are boring, I don’t trust my managers to be good leaders and I’m not learning that much. And I’m always wondering if they plan on making my position a permanent one.

I’m tired of being pushed around as if I don’t have a voice. This past year has gone by so quickly – I didn’t really do anything, I just worked, trying to make it to the end of the day, to the end of the week – there’s not too much to look forward to.

It’s been eight months since I got this temp job, and I’m still wondering if it’s right for me. Bad parts: commute is too long, work is too boring, people are too unreasonable and not nice or flexible (anymore). Good parts: having a job is better than not having one.

I don’t know. I feel like it’s a waste of eight months if I don’t try to hang on here for longer, but if I really do hate it, why make myself miserable?

I got “caught” dozing on my lunch break on Friday. My supervisor pulled me aside and said that senior management may not like it. It made me feel pretty angry because lunch break is my time and even if they caught me blatantly sleeping at my desk with a blanket and an alarm clock (which I wasn’t doing, of course), there is not much they can do about it. Plus, I’m a temp, I don’t even get paid for lunch break.

It made me even more angry in the way it happened. I was reading a magazine in my cubicle, and closed my eyes for five minutes, and my supervisor’s walking in the area to use the printer and she sees me. Five minutes later, I get a phone call from her, I’m taken to this empty conference room and it seems like it’s a big deal.

I don’t know what to make of all this. I feel kinda shellshocked, because it happened so fast, and I wasn’t doing anything wrong. My job is starting to suck.

I’m still working, and in two more week, I’ll tie my record for my longest stint at one job (ten weeks). It’s good to have some stability, and everything is pretty good – the people are nice, the work is easy once you get used to it – but it’s not in a field I’m interested in pursuing long term.

So even if I get offered a full- time position, I’m not sure I’d want to take it. But I won’t worry about that now, they may even decide to let me go in a month or so. You never know in this business.

So I finished my second day at this giant financial company. It’s not really like my other jobs, where I got up to speed within a day or so. There’s a lot more training involved, and a lot more terminology. But I think it’ll get better with experience.

One thing about temping, you always kind of feel like a fish out of water. This is my 4th job in 6 months, so there have been a lot of first days on the job, and a lot of getting used to where to go (physically), and a lot of mentally learning how procedures go and stuff.

My head fills like a coffee-maker with a ton of coffee beans, it feels full of knowledge and I just need to let it sit and percolate.

I’ve been holding my breath since last week. I did 2 interviews last Friday through my temp agency, and I got an offer from one company. Sadly, the other company was still trying to decide, so I had make a decision today on what I wanted to do.

I took the position, even though it’s not in my field. It’s probably going to be more involved than any other jobs in the past, and it’s probably going to last longer too. I’m happy about getting the position, but I really wanted this to lead somewhere; if this leads to a permanent position, I want it to lead to a field I’m interested in, and I’m not that interested in finance.

But what can you do? You gotta work with what you have. This is the first time I’ve gone through an interview and gotten an offer (not counting internships). So I’m still happy and excited that I finally beat out all the other candidates, and I’m going to be given a chance to succeed.

I will start my job next week.

I didn’t get the position. I was preparing myself just in case I didn’t get it, but I still feel pretty down about it. It’s just a entry-level position, and I know that I could have done a great job if I was given the chance! But I just feel dumb that I took a week preparing for my phone interview just to get shut down. And I know there wasn’t anything I did wrong or whatever, there was just someone equally qualified who beat me to it.

It just makes me mad, because I need this, I need this for myself, I need this for my sanity. Because there isn’t any alternative, it’s get a job, or keep trying until you do.

This has nothing to do with a temp position, but I finally got an phone interview set up later this week. I got the email today and I couldn’t stop jumping up and down in joy. (Job searching is like that – long stretches of boredom, and hopefully, bursts of pure excitement).

The bad news is, it’s only part-time, but it’s not temporary, so there is some stability. For me, one of the biggest obstacles is trying to get a permanent job (not just a temp position) so I am moving in the right direction.

I really hope this leads somewhere, because I’ve been feeling pressure now that it’s been ten months since I graduated. More than anyone, I want this all to end.

I did another temp job last week, but I think I’m ready to go back to slogging away at finding a permanent position. It’s funny, but my temp jobs have gotten shorter in duration, when I really want is something more long term. That’s why I’m willing to go back to the permanent job search, because I don’t think temp agencies are going to find what I want.

But before I call it quits, I’m willing to role the dice one more time and see what the agencies come up with. I still think that a longer term temp job would buy me some stability and a little time to look for a better job.

Okay, I officially hate this job. It involves copying and pasting on a computer, about 200 times a day. I’ve done this for 7 days so far, and it’s so mind-numbingly boring that I want to finish it as fast as I can, despite that it’s supposed to last a month.

I don’t know if I ever want to go back to temping. That’s how awful I feel about this. Today it felt like I had just woken up to find myself in some kind of low-paying, corporate nightmare, with no possibility of escape. I wanted to scream or run away or do something, anything but return to my desk and do the same thing a hundred more times. But of course, I didn’t.

The problem is, I don’t know how much I’m worth. How much can a college grad with no experience expect to make? Right now, I’m making less than 30k and I can’t afford my own place. It’s so hard to land a permanent job, so I might try temping as a lab assistant – I really hope they make more than regular temps.