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August 28, 2005
Life Liberty and Pursuit of Self Restraint
dEAR bLOG READERS, YOU WILL BE EXCITED TO KNOW THAT i AM CURRENTLY WRITIN FROM THE CONFINES OF A BASEMENT ON cONNECTICUT aVE IN dc. i HAVE MANAGED TO SECURE COMMUNICATION WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD, NONETHELESS THIS IS A VERY dangerous situation.” The Client is onsite" as I was told my first day when I was caught playing hearts. Since then my stock has risen. I spent my first week here, in this dank basement, trying to get fired. I had decided I hated the job, there was nothing pretty to look at, save the big boss lady, who is not at all big and is the aforementioned "Client." So, miserable, I came and went messing up the occasional detail in a very sensitive project; but fate was not on my side. I was so poorly trained, that not only were the intentional mistakes minor in comparison to the unintentional ones, they were excusable on that basis. By then I had resigned myself to staring at the wall for forty hours a week, at least for a couple weeks. It's pretty damn hard to get fired from a temp job.
Nonetheless I called the temp agency and asked for a new assignment. Keep in mind, now, that I just changed agencies and got a decent pay raise for it. The new one pays $15-$18 an hour. This job pays $15, which means that wherever they transfer me, I won't have to take a pay cut, most likely get another raise, and work in a place with windows and be doing more interesting work, only slightly more interesting granted, but more interesting. The temp recruiter, who had forgotten my name for the third time when I called, was unsympathetic. I began to contemplate, gulp, learning to type I was so desperate to get out (I have had a $17 an hour job dangled in front of me through a third agency if I could only type 50 wpm).
Meanwhile, my only escape at work was going to bathroom once an hour like clockwork (at least there's no bathroom pass) and running to talk to the cute boss lady whenever the slightest excuse arose.
Oh, cute boss lady! My only creative outlet. One such occasion, as I ran to her like a kindergartener on a tattle tale, she was surprised and, not to put to fine a point on it, impressed that I had 'caught' something. Delighted, she offered me a candy bar; this was no ordinary, Halloween size two bite mini candy bar, oh no, it was a REAL candy bar, the ones that you buy individually by the cash register. So much does she love me, dear readers, full size candy bar much!
But, as do all moments of glory, this moment faded and I ate the candy bar that afternoon. Nonetheless, I continued my busy commute across the basement to her office whenever I had the slightest excuse. I was, however, making no progress on finding another job and getting more desperate, as of is often my reaction to my own inaction.
Desperation is often the best motivation, as any terminally shy male will tell you, so, when I noticed that lots of the documents that are going through my fingers here in the mole hole are in German, I decided to offer my services as a translator, as this would give me an excuse to visit my succulent superior.
"Unfortunately, we're not in that stage of the project yet, but I can keep you name in mind." she said with a consoling, heart melting smile.
"Oh, well."
"You're really attentive, Are you interested in.."
I thought being your boyfriend, please say be my boyfriend
"... a position as a reviewer?"
"Sure, that'd be great."
Crap, I guess we're not at that stage of the project yet.
Later that day my real boss, inferior to the lovely boss lady, both physically and in the hierarchy, pulled me aside as I was leaving, bag stuffed with stolen office supplies, in fact dangerously so; my bag was nearly overflowing. This is the moment of truth, I thought, finally I'll be recognized for the premeditated slacker I am, exposed as a fraud with an unhealthy (particularly in light of the candy bar) obsession with the captivating chief.
"The gorgeous boss lady talked to me."
"Oh" I said, frozen, unwilling to move lest the clank of Snapple Peach flavored Ice Tea revealed me.
"She said she wanted you to transfer to reviewing, apparently she's really impressed with your..."
physique?
"attentiveness."
"Great, I'd like to move."
"Okay, I assume that once I talk to the unsympathetic temp agency, it'll all go through and you'll start there in two weeks, when the others do."
"Great."
"By the way thanks for all your hard work. You've done a great job. When the beautiful boss lady told me about that catch of yours, I meant to go out and buy you a present to thank you."
So it was that, tilting under the weight of my contraband, I was praised and promoted for being the most effective slacker I could be. There is evidently no Justice in the world.
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This episode was, for me at least, humorous, but not at all atypical of my life as a temp. Aside from the occasional humorous episode, always as a result of my intentionally atrocious work ethic, work as a temp is awful, but tolerable. So, not wanting to be forced to tolerate the rest of my life, I've decided to get a career, this may not seem new, as I have decided on a career more than one time per year for the last five years, but this time I've actually out some money into it.
This is the plan:
- Understand Law.
- Understand Economics.
- Get Power.
- Rule world.
- Retire.
At this point in the conversation most of my girl friends will tune out while my guy friends will say something like "Dude this is obviously a convoluted ploy to get laid, why don't you just get off your ass and talk to that girl at the end of the bar." I admit that I may be committing the same mistake I did when I chose math, I'm picking this cause I want to and not necessarily with some tangible career in mind but I simply cannot do otherwise, that's my tragic flaw.
In the meantime I have roughly a year. I have to take enough econ so I can reasonably start the econ side of my joint JD/MS studies in the fall of '07. In the meantime I'll just work and travel. More on that later.
Posted by conryf at 11:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack