Temp Jobs

The summer in between my sophomore and junior years of college, I didn’t have anything lined up in the way of a job, so l signed on with a temp agency. This is back when they were still called Kelly Girls.🙂

My first assignment was at a generic office in a corporate plaza, where I was assigned to sit at a desk. That was it. I don’t remember being asked to do a single thing. They gave me a key to the desk. I think my job was watching the key. Or the desk. I didn’t have to greet visitors, answer phones, do paperwork, nothing. There was a birthday party in the afternoon, so the boss came by and said to hold down the fort while everyone was having cake. What? Did you think I was actually invited to the party?

My mistake was taking that key home with me. I really had no intention of going back, but being the responsible person that I am, back I went the next day. I hope that I brought a book - those were the pre-internet and pre-cell phone days. I left the key on the desk when I left. There was no day three.

My second assignment was at a small office; I don’t remember what they did but at least there was work to be done. The boss was full on Miami Vice style hair and clothes. I had to make copies using a mimeograph machine that looked like this.

Photo courtesy of http://hqinfo.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-art-of-mimeograph-symposium-alt-gar.html?m=1

I admit this was the 1980’s, but photocopiers had been invented. I ruined my shirt every day from the black ink that went into that contraption. Evidently, Mr. Miami didn’t want his peach colored suits ruined. I lasted about a week there.

My third assignment was at a family owned seafood supply business where my job was answering phones and taking down orders for fish. I sat in a medium size office with the owners - a brother and sister and the sister’s husband. Not the best family dynamic. Talk about awkward - the three of them bickered all day long. The callers were restaurant owners and English was not their first language. I would say Chinese, Japanese, and Indian was more like it, and very difficult to understand. I lasted one week there.

Three strikes and Kelly Girls was out. I gave up trying to find a job that summer and registered for a college class instead. Even though I earned 3 credits I don’t remember a thing about that class. But I sure remember a lot about those temp jobs.