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Temping can be rather liberating. Sounds crazy right? If you've been following my suggestions you'll realize there is constant hustle involved with molding your Temp work into something you can use. You have to stay motivated, keep moving, and not let yourself get stuck in a rut by thinking that this particular perod in your life will continue on indefinitely. Temping is called "temping" for a reason. It's temporary!
It can be a vacation of sorts from your normal "I've got to make this work because my career is at stake" day to day. You can be yourself for once - consequences be damned! At its best temping is a tolerable way to make money along with, perhaps, some useful connections for your future professional endeavors. At its worst, temping is a brutal Mad-Maxian Thunderdome exercise in survival. Liberation, as a sensation or state of being is a great high and it's something that stays with you for a long time. Remember when the bell rang on the last day of school before summer vacation? Remember getting your license and taking that first drive? What about when you drank your first legal beer and subsequent shots?
In many ways, what I'm about to present to you is a cautionary tale. My behavior is an ideal example of what happens when you have been doing this kind of thing for too long. There is a strong and pleasurable cathartic tendancy to take things too far. It's one thing to be an ASSISTANT with the illusion of an ascension, a path, or a trajectory ahead of you. Such a mind-state allows you to put up with more than any human would otherwise. Another thing entirely is to be a Temp with no real stake in the work you're doing. I like to think that I try my very best to practice what I preach in regards to putting a positive spin on this temporary period of your life. That said, there does come a time when the hammer has to come-out - you'd might as well have fun and do whatever damage you can. Subversion is always key and no less satisfying when successful. Here are just a few examples of my Dark Side stories:
I worked with a guy who was always yelling or bitching every time I picked up the phone. It was his M.O. - nothing to do with me. No exaggeration - he was like this from the first clueless morning when I started straight through to the end. So I just started hanging up on him. Sometimes two or three times in a row. Why not? Seriously kind readers - why the fuck not? It was great. He would be like: "Did we get cut off there?" I would say: "No." Then later, when such "hang-ups" or "cut-offs" became more of a common occurrence (due to his asinine conduct), he became a bit more polite - nothing genuine of course - he was an asshole doing what he had to do to get his phone calls from a temp who wasn't about to take his shit. Point being: I had asserted my control over our little dynamic. If he wanted to go about his day to day, he was going to have to go through me: The Motherfuckin' Temp!. In their cars these *"Pricks" think themselves above the rest of the gentry. Never underestimate the power of a "No". Especially when you're on the phone with one of these Pricks. They are powerless. Their phone/scheduling/social destiny lies with you. In their cars they are ANTS and you are a GOD. *Note: If a guy can be called an "Asshole" and a woman can be called a "Bitch", the collision would result in 'Prick' " = "An obnoxious or contemptible person."
Another maniac once threw a book at me as he walked by and told me to scan it into the printer so he could email copies to people. "It's the last fing copy I have and I need to send it out to a bunch of these assholes!" I didn't acknowledge him. I just picked up the book. The title was something which I knew would appeal to my girlfriend, so I just brought it home that day and gave it to her. It's not like I was coming back to work there the next day anyway...
Still another guy would demand a cup of coffee every 10 minutes. The office had one of those machines which used dehydrated packets to make watered-down beverages. He was already an asshole to begin with, and the coffee would make him exponentially worse. You could totally see it happening. The sheer escalation was really incredible to witness. Fury, rage, serious sweating. I never stopped giving him the coffee drinks, but I did start giving him decaf after the first one or two. The DP and the EP were appreciative. Weird thing is, it didn't seem to make any difference. So I walked. There are more of these. Stories that is. Perhaps in the future I'll lay them out.
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