October 30, 2005
Wrath,Tempered.
I am unemployed. I have failed utterly in my duty as a temp and, as such, retribution has been visited upon me. I have broken the cardinal sin of temping, and for the base consideration of monetary gain. What I did was not immoral, but impolitic; I cared. I broke that iron maxim of temping that the author of factotum (who better to appeal to as the godfather of temping) has on his headstone: "Don't Try" 
When last I blogged about my temping I was in the midst of being promoted, being showered with accolades and I was saturated with apathy for my position. I was promoted and the accolades and apathy soon took leave as I saw my paychecks rise and a ray of hope crop up on the horizon. I dreamed of a land of milk and honey where I had both free time and financial security. I began showing up on time (mostly), and working. Now, having temped for many years, working is not something that I'm very familiar with. Nonetheless I started out at a job where they emphasized "Quality over Quantity" as a fairly productive worker. Then, the game of telephone began. Rumors spread that we had not fully taken to heart the doctrine of quality over quantity. That heads would roll if we did not slow down in a hurry.
Perhaps I have not duly prepared my readers for this revelation, perhaps I should cradle my own fall from grace with a few excuses and circumstances, but I will not, I will state my sin in all it's writhing baseness; I cared. I tried. I complied and I assumed my bosses and the gods of temping would see me through until such time as I chose to terminate my own employment. The gods of temping were no doubt puzzled at this peculiar circumstance. A heretofore well behaved, experienced temp, breaking all the rules, throwing caution to the wind and trying? They, no doubt, gave me the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps that I had achieved complete independence from the decrees of management and thus my decrease in productivity was a mere coincidence and not an act of heresy. They then set forth a second decree: that productivity was to be raised. They even, to be entirely sure of my fall from grace, set a certain range of acceptable output, to be sure that I was indeed trying.
I failed them on the second occasion. I tried once again. I was oblivious, happy with my queen and my worldly possessions, of the will of the gods. I then boosted productivity, bad enough in itself given that this clearly indicated that I cared. Worse, I boosted productivity to the range specified and did so immediately. Oh shame! The Gods, now satisfied that I had flaunted the prime mover of temping came down on me with their wrath.
On a Saturday morning my cell phone rang with an unknown number. The unknown number gave way to a familiar voice. My services were no longer needed. I duly chirped back, pleasant, cordial, unperturbed and hung up but inside I was marked, shamed. I knew my crime and I knew that this was a lenient sentence for it. I thanked the gods for their mercy, took a week off and now I'm looking for work, steeling my resolution not to try or care in the least. Oh gods of temping, forgive me!
Posted by conryf at 06:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack