Man, I hate when I go to a restaurant and decide to try something that I usually don't order just to be new and different, but once the food shows up all I can think about is how I should of stuck with the tried and true.

Anyways, here comes....
Temp Job: Day III

Head in at 8:30. Supposed to go see someone knew in another department because they have work for me. I call. Of course, she's not there. So I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally, ten minutes later someone comes down and gets me. She apologizes and tells me that nothing was finalized and since she didn't realize I was gonna show up, wasn't thinking about waiting for the call. Getting a little sick of this routine. The women is definitely not someone I'd expect at PG&E, though- mid to late twenties Chinese lady, decked out in super hip yet stylish clothes and both nose and tongue peircings. Have a feeling I might like being in her department for a day or two.

She takes me upstairs to the "College Recruiting" Department. Which I find kind of funny, considering that it might be kind of hard looking for employees when in the past year they've declared bankruptcy, been accused of intentionally sabotaging their power plants, and blamed for the Energy Crisis ("umm, it's all Enron's fault, we had nothing to do with it"). I'm told that there's a closet full of trinkets that the recruiters have to hand out and that I'm supposed to go through the boxes of trinkets, count fifty of them, and then put them in a special PG&E bag. If I finish that, I get to go through recruitment folders and take out all the old and out of date pamphlets. I am so happy that I had a hunch about today and brought my walkman with me.

I grab a few boxes from a small, stuffy closet and head to a cubicle assigned to me to start counting. I am introduced to the guy sitting across from me. He's your prototypical dude with a huge "Cal State Hayward" sticker across his cubicle. I don't know whether or not I should be impressed. He's really friendly, introduces himself to me and then thanks me for doing what I'm doing. When I make a half-sarcastic comment about a "first aid" kit that I'm packing up, he tells me that PG&E's motto is always "safety first." I am not sure whether he's joking or not. He doesn't seem like the type of person with any sense of irony, no sense of the absurd- in other words, the perfect corporate drone. I realize within a few seconds that while he is a really nice and well-meaning guy, I probably have nothing in common with him. A feeling that's confirmed to me when he uses his CD player to listen to music and through the sounds of AC/DC on my walkman, I hear him listening to some soft-rock music.

The women in the cubicle next to me I recognize. She used to work with me at MFI, way back in the day. I recognize her because she was kind of cute and because she was the one I had to deal with after they laid me off. I wonder if she recognizes me, but I don't think she does. I think about saying something to her about the whole MFI thing, but decide against it, what with her being on a good, career type path and me sitting there counting up to fifty pens and putting them in a clear basket bag.

I start counting and move from pens, to staplers, to flashlight keychains to "First Aid Kits," all emblanzoned with the PG&E logo. I am caught in the Temp's great dilemna, to finish a really boring task as quick as possible all the while knowing that it'll only lead to yet another really boring task, or do the really boring task as slow as possible to avoid the really boring work that you know is coming.

I can't wait until my real job starts.