Temping

My godmother was the one who put the bug in my ear. When I last saw her, she was wondering if I could help her paint her house this summer. "Are you working?" she asked. "Are you temping?"

Ah, temping. I haven't temped in almost a decade, and I still rank that temp job as the worst one I ever had. If I were given the assignment now, I would have sued for discrimination and abuse. Or quit. Or both. I worked with a group of people, mostly immigrants, folding statements for FastLane. Some were really nice, and then there was one man who constantly called me stupid and incompetent, which I know I wasn't. I had a very difficult time understanding his accent (he was from Ghana), and when I asked him to repeat instructions, he would yell at me and make me sit in a corner by myself. The only reason I stayed was because it paid good money, and I needed to pay for college.

So yesterday, I went to a temping agency, one recommended by my husband's company. I talked to the placement agent, who wasn't surprised that I'm having trouble finding full-time work in this economy. (That made me feel better.) I had to take the requisite tests, and I was pleased to have scored perfectly on Excel and Word, and I discovered that I type at 75 words per minute.

I won't be placed anywhere until next week, probably, and in the meantime, I'll still be sending out resumes and so forth. Who knows, maybe I'll get a temp job that will lead to a full-time job? In any case, I'm definitely in need of funding.

And I can always look forward to a house painting gig this summer.