Hmmm... a friend says I've been dipping a bit too much into the angst well lately. Guess this blog lately has turned into Season 6 Buffy- overly depressing, bleakish in outlook, and not nearly as much fun as it was in the past. Sorry. I'll bring back the funny in a bit (and Buffy better too or I'm gonna be pissed). Do have a job now, you know, so no more dark tales about watching porn at three in the morning.

But now, some more of the continuing adventures of me Temping.......

Temp job, Day II…..

Tuesday

Worked a half-day. Due to a long story that I won't get into here, they had me assigned to my job so quickly that they didn't even realize that my boss would be away doing off-site stuff til Thursday. Which means I don't have anything to do and I get to come in whenever I want. It also means that there's nobody to sign all of my papers, so I'm unable to get a security pass or computer I.D. Every day until Thursday, I have to go to the Security Desk , call someone to come and get me and stand out in the lobby for the ten minutes or so that it takes for the person to come. So love having to do that.

Today I walked in at 1 and went to do what I had to do. The Security Guard in charge was either about to retire or had already retired but decided he needed something to keep him busy, so was kind of on the older side of things. He did things very…very….slowly. He was also hard of hearing and didn't really speak English, exactly the kind of Security Guard you'd want to watch over your corporate HQ. Anyways, after taking about five minutes to explain everything, saying everything at least three times before he got it, I called the person who I report to, Arlene, only to get no answer.

So I go off to one side of the lobby and stand and wait. And wait. And wait. Fifteen minutes go by and nothing. For the entire period, the old SG kept on eyeing me, constantly asking me over and over again what I'm here for. And everytime I tell him, I have to tell him at least three times. We try the person again a few times, but still no answer.

Sick of standing in the hallway, I call someone else. PG&E, you see, actually hires another company to hire their temps. Which means that, yes, they out-source the people who are in charge of hiring the out-sourcing. Since I had the number of the person who I dealt with earlier, Janis, we called her, the guard once again asking me what my name was. No answer.

He tries another number, says something on the phone and mentions my name, completely mangling it despite the fact he had heard it so many times, and five minutes later, some frosty blonde came down to get me. The person from the out-sourcing company was still at lunch, but the Guard called the General number and got her. Frosty takes me up to her office to figure out what to do with me.

I should probably add here that I had no idea what I was supposed to do this day. Arlene had something planned for me and was planning on giving me to another Department to help them out, but she hadn't gotten it all settled when I left on Monday. So, basically I had no idea what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, however, because she knew I was gonna come in at 1 and didn't say anything about it. Naturally, I thought she'd be there. But she wasn't there.

Frosty takes me up to her desk, listens to my story, then takes me down to my floor to see if we can find Arlene. Not there. We do, however, run into Arlene's boss. Turns out Arlene's at a training session and won't be back til 2:30. Ooops. She doesn't know what I'm supposed to do. I tell everyone that Janis had mentioned that I was supposed to go work in another department and she might know what to do, so we go back to the Out-Sourcing office and wait. Janis is, of course, late from lunch..

I get some coffee and sit at her desk, waiting. There's nothing to do. Nothing to read. I just sit there. After about five minutes, Frosty stumbles upon a "Glamour" magazine and since that's the only thing I had to read (well, except for an issue of Tupperware magazine that I saw in the break room), I sat there at Janis's desk, reading Glamour magazine.

I am a lost little orphan in a shopping mall, looking for his mother, with all these people I don't know trying to get me home and tell me it'll be alright. Except I'm getting paid $20 an hour for sitting in someone's desk and reading an article on how to tell if the guy you're flirting with is really into you.

Hope this thing gets better....

to be continued....