And just like that, temp job's over. They panicked, hired too many temps and I played my cards well enough so that I'm not going back there tomorrow. Oh well. It was actually turning kind of fun.

And yes, naturally, I was the one who pushed the Girl over the edge. It wasn't really my fault, but I did it nonetheless.

See, there was this temp who started there this morning. He was, from the get-go, surly and bitter about the gig (not that I'd know what that's like, of course) and didn't look particulary happy to be there. When another temp and I got back from lunch, we noticed that while he and his stuff were gone, all of his work was neatly piled up on his desk as if he had just gone out for a bite. Couple hours went by and he still hadn't come back.

There were three of us in this newly painted room, wearing jackets to keep from freezing due to the windows having to be left open to keep us from getting sick from the paint fumes. As the hours clicked by and that one temp guy didn't come back, we started to wonder what happened. Is he just doing the old "they'll never know how long of a lunch I'm taking, so I'm gonna take a three hour lunch" move? Did he just bail on the job at lunch-time? Or did the company tell them they didn't need them anymore because it was obvious they had hired too many temps? We didn't know and didn't know exactly what to do. None of us were really doing any work and the work was just sitting there, but since we didn't know what had happened, were unsure what to do. It could be possible that they just let him go and forgot that he was there. On the other hand, he could of just skipped off and we'd rat him out. And if we do rat him out, is that cool or not? We ratted on him.

Actually, we didn't mean to. We just figured he was sent home and as I was the one with the least amount of work and had reached a point where I was no longer able to figure out any other words on the crossword puzzle, it fell to me to ask about the left-over work. So I grabbed the work and asked the Girl who was running everything what to do. I asked, only to get this as a response: "he's gone? huh? Where did he go?"

She follows me into the room where we were sitting, took a look at the pile of papers that he left behind, put her hand over her mouth and laughed. In between her laughter, she just shook her head and muttered "I can't believe we can't keep anyone here.." then went to the corner of the room, her hand still over mouth and her back turned away from us, and laughed some more. Kind of. It didn't really sound like a happy laugh, more like a "gotta keep laughing or else I'm gonna cry laugh," like the tears were gonna come out at any second. Like that morning when the server went down, I could hear a few sobs lodged somewhere in the middle of her laugh. The other two temps and I just kind of stared at each other, kind of sorry we brought it up, kind of scared about what was gonna happen.

And then the Temp Agency called. According to them, the guy had a major allergy attack or something and on his way back to work from lunch, had such an attack that he was having trouble breathing and had to go to the hospital he was so sick. He even said he was a couple of blocks away when he got hit with the attack and was about to hail a cab to go to the hospital. Something which I'd have more sympathy for and believe if it wasn't for the fact:

1)someone who started yesterday used the same excuse
2)He had to spend the whole morning fixing an Excel spread sheet because he accidently deleted a cell instead of a row and fucked it all up (something which wasn't his doing, of course)
3)Acted the whole time like he didn't want to be there.
4)I somehow consider myself as being responsible and don't have the balls to make up bullshit excuses about why I don't want to go into a Temp Job and I was pissed someone had the balls to do what I couldn't do.

See what I mean about the job being fun?

Oh, and here's a few things I learned about being a Security Guard:
-The pay is shit
-The pay is even more shit if you don't use a gun
-The Federal Government pays even less than a private company would, so the company I temped for just lost five guards that they trained to a higher-paying Security Agency (Tom Ridge, hello?)
-A history of domestic violence doesn't disqualify you from becoming a Security Guard
-And finally that the health insurance sucks. This I know because while I was in there, fixing Allergy Guys' spreadsheet, a Guard came in (one at the ripe age of 64) to say that he got in a scuffle the night before and just recieved the full bill for having the ambulance come and check him out. The company was trying to get worker's comp for him because I guess his insurance doesn't cover ambulance care. Not that his job is dangerous or that he's putting his life on the line.