So I had so much fun writing about all the ridiculous jobs I had, I decided to do it again. You see, I've had many, many jobs. We've only just begun, my friends.
When Clinton was in office, we had a lot of things: a collective sense of fabulousness, interns who shopped at Old Navy, NAFTA, GATT and jobs. Lots and lots of jobs. I recall walking past a grocery store one day and seeing signs offering grocery baggers $15 per hour to start. But I wasn't walking; I was skipping. It was like a scene from a Disney princess movie. That's what it was like back then. Apparently we were involved in a war somewhere...Baghdad? Belgrade? Bosnia...? I don't know, who cares? I was drinking several doses a day of Clinton-Ade, so I was none the wiser.
I decided to temp, having worked two years at a tiny non-profit which I loved but needed to run screaming from. So I glided on down to a temp agency--we'll call it TEMPtation--and said, "Yes, one job, please. Or many. Whatever."
What followed was a series of weird, infuriating, often hilarious assignments that will provide the fodder for this article.
"Can you shred this?"
I was assigned an Office Manager position in a office full of the laziest women in the world. It was a government agency, which explains a lot. The co-worker who sat closest to me was obsessed with One Life to Live and wanted to discuss it endlessly, even though I had never seen it. When she wasn't blathering about her soap, she was telling me how amazingly stupid her husband was.
"I can't believe that asshole. He put rice in the garbage disposal. Rice. What the hell was he thinking? You can't put rice in a garbage disposal. Jesus Christ." I never told her that I didn't have a garbage disposal but if I magically did one day, I would put everything in the garbage disposal: rice, limbs, maxed out credit cards....
When her husband called, I always knew because she'd pick up the phone and say, "Yeah?" Then there would be a long pause, followed by, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" or "No. No, absolutely not, goddammit."
Another co-worker used to get up from her desk, walk past the copier to my desk, hand me one piece of paper and say, "Could you make two copies of this please?" It's like someone told her, "We're getting a temp" and she was like, "Oh, I've always wanted a slave."
Near the end of that assignment, a pretty well-known scandal occurred. I came into work one day and found a giant shredder sitting at my desk. My boss looked a bit rabid and she instructed me to shred boxes and boxes of documents. I did, because I wasn't super aware of what was going on. Every now and again, I read through a document but I had no idea what I was reading. I thought maybe I'd come across some piece of paper that would literally say, "This is undeniable proof of the crazy ass shit we did and who all was involved" but that never happened.
An Efficient Office Runs on Dairy
TEMPtation placed me with a company that...manufactured...something. I was the receptionist, the single most boring job in the universe. I answered the phone, which rang about once an hour; I was responsible for making coffee every morning and calling people when there were other people there to meet with them. By about 10am every day, I was looking for a noose. I had no access to the Internet so I brought books and magazines with me, which solicited disapproving stink eye from one of executive assistants. I didn't care, I was a temp.
What I was never told was that I was responsible for ordering things for the break room, like sugar, fake sugar, plastic utensils and creamer. In the 6 weeks I was there, I never had to order anything except creamer which is something I didn't know until we ran out of creamer.
I was flipping through an issue of People when Liz, the stink eye executive assistant, came flying down the stairs. Her eyes were huge, like someone upstairs had just had a heart attack in front of her.
"Dresden!" She blurted.
I was startled. "Yes?"
"We're out of creamer!"
After she said it, she stood there, her shoulders all hunched up into her ears, her bony hands balled into tight, pink fists. I just looked at her.
"We're out...of creamer!" She said it slower, as if I didn't catch what she'd said the first time.
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Okaaaaaaaaaaaay...." I said.
"We cannot be out of creamer! Didn't you order any?!"
"Uhhhhhhh no."
"Well why not?"
"Because I didn't know I was supposed to."
Then she made that angry sound, like she was trying to clear a frog out of her throat. She stomped behind my desk and picked up the phone, stabbing someones extension.
"Hi", she said. "Well, we're officially out. Yep. Dresden forgot to order some."
I didn't get it. Was this really the end of the world?
Liz slammed the phone down. "Ok, call Wilson's and order some creamer. It won't get delivered until tomorrow but...I guess we'll just have to make do."
"Well...I mean, I can go out over lunch and pick some up." I couldn't even believe the words were coming out of my mouth. What I wanted to say was, "If you ever wondered why you're single, I think I have the answer."
Liz waved her hands at me, like she was shooing a gnat. "No, it's fine. Just...call Wilson's, ok?"
I called Wilson's. Then I called TEMPtation and asked for a new assignment.
Internet Porn: Why Not?
I was assigned to an office that had one person in it. He was a neurologist and he saw patients at a clinic in a different city. He was in the office where I was 2 days a week. The other 3 days, I was completely alone.
On the days he was there, I had to print off all his email and put it on his desk. That's it. He would go in his office and close the door and he would generally leave by noon. Occasionally the phone would ring and I'd have to say, "Dr. Bishop's Office. No, I'm sorry, he's at the clinic today. Ok, bye."
I would spend hours surfing the Internet, writing, talking on the phone and even sleeping under my desk. His office was in a large office building, full of random offices. So no one--not one single person--even knew I was there.
I cannot tell you how stunningly bored I was. There was nothing to do. Nothing. It wasn't like you could watch TV or movies online yet, so I couldn't do that. I didn't even have an iPod because Apple hadn't invented those yet. Well, maybe they had, but it was the size of a bible, cost $1500 and held 20 songs.
I decided to look at Internet porn.
I had never seen it before but it was the subject of several Lifetime movies, so there must be something to it. I had watched a porn movie once or twice and found them to be pretty icky. I lived with boys at the time, so the computer in my house was littered with Internet porn but I never actually saw any of it. I didn't even know how to begin, so after some lengthy thought, I typed "porn" into the search engine.
There it was. Website titles like, "Gross and Icky People Doing Terrible Things" and "Lots of Naked Hairy Men Have Sex with One Girl with Many Daddy Issues." I'm paraphrasing, of course. Nervously, I clicked on, "Pizza Delivery Yields Sexy Results." My screen was flooded with images and pop-ups for other websites. As soon as I clicked to close one, another emerged. The pictures seemed to get worse and worse and I started to panic.
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit!"
My computer was spitting out images of over-done, overly-tanned big haired women with pained expressions, mouths open, things being inserted and fluids being expelled.
"Stooooooooop!" I hissed, desperately clicking the tiny arrows to close the pop ups.
Control-Alt-Delete. Nothing. I pressed and held the power button. More pop-ups. I stood up, planning to get my coat and purse and just leave. Instead, I ran to the back of the computer and yanked the plug out of the wall. I half expected it to laugh at me and say, "You stupid girl! You have unleashed the forbidden underground of the Internet! You are one of us now!"
But thankfully, the screen just went blank. I never did that again.
Its Much Cheaper to be Cremated.
Luckily, TEMPtation was a national company, so when I moved to Seattle in 2001, they assigned me to work for an audit company. I had an address and Yahoo directions...that lead me to a funeral home in West Seattle.
I sat in the parking lot, wondering what the hell was going on. Finally, I thought that maybe the audit company officed in a funeral home...? That made sense...maybe. I went inside. There were a lot of people shuffling through papers. A woman snapped to attention when I walked in.
"Are you the temp?" She asked. I could tell just by looking at her that this woman was no fun at all.
"Yes", I said, beaming, trying to make a good impression.
"Good. Follow me."
Long story short, the audit company was auditing the funeral home. I guess I should have asked someone what "audit" meant. No Fun lead me to a room. A young woman sat in the room, surrounded by 3x5 index cards. She looked overjoyed when she saw me.
"This is Heather. She'll tell you what to do."
Heather jumped to her feet and eagerly shook my hand.
"Hi! I'm Heather! What's your name?"
"Dresden. Nice to meet you."
"You too! Are you looking at my hand?"
The question caught me off guard. "Um...no...."
"Oh, ok. I mean, if you are, that's fine. I was in a terrible accident a few years ago."
She held up her hand; it was badly scarred but still recognizable as a hand.
"I got it caught in a meat grinder."
"Oh! Oh, wow, that's...."
"Crazy, I know! I was working on a boat in Alaska. There's, like, no cartilage left in my hand at all. It's nuts!"
"That's...wow."
We sat down and Heather explained that the funeral home was graduating into the 1900s and wanted to transfer all their data on to a computer. Before they could do that, we needed to go through each index card and make sure someone had scrawled "paid in full" on it. There were thousands of cards, each detailing the death and funeral arrangements for each person they had ever buried. Each card was written by hand and they were barely legible. Some were written in pencil, which had faded over the years. Some were apparently written by a 5 year old because they were so messy, I couldn't read a single word. Some had the word "paid" written on them; some "paid in full." Also, Heather cautioned, if there was an urn involved, we had to determine what kind of urn it was because those had to be logged in a different way.
After exactly 30 seconds of silence, Heather said, "Oh, by the way, if I start to freak out, don't worry about it."
"What?"
She grinned at me. "I have super bad panic attacks, like, all the time."
"Oh...."
"Usually, I get real sweaty and then I start to shake. Eventually, I throw up and then I'll have to go home."
"Ok..."
"It's just cuz, like, my Dad has them and I think they're hereditary. That's why I was on the boat. In Alaska."
"Oh."
"Cuz I needed to leave my house because, like, my Dad was, like, crazy and stuff. So I married this guy and we decided to work on a boat in Alaska. But I got my hand hurt and then my husband was, like, drinking a lot and stuff. That's when I lost the baby."
Oh dear God....
"But it's ok because, like, I think I'd be a good mom but according to the state of Washington, I wouldn't be. So it's probably ok that, like, I didn't have one. So anyway, my husband and I split up and, like, my boyfriend is, like, still all weird about my ex-husband and I'm like, 'he's my ex, ok', and he's like all super jealous and stuff. It's crazy."
Heather decided we should go to Taco Time for lunch every day. If I said I brought my lunch or wanted to go somewhere else, she looked like she was going to cry. So I'd drive us to Taco Time. Heather told me about how she was planning to buy a Daewoo and how she'd run her ex-husband over with her boyfriend's car because he just couldn't understand that she loved someone else now. One morning, she had a giant, oozing, painful looking cold sore and she kept rubbing Ban Roll-On all over it. Other days, she didn't speak a word to me or anyone else; just kept her head down, sullen and focused.
I concentrated on the cards and determined that it was much cheaper to be cremated than buried in a casket. Urns were like $100 or less, at least in the 80s. I was at the funeral home for about two weeks when my patience started to wear thin. My eyes were crossing from all the terrible handwriting and death. Plus, that place was dusty and Heather's roller coaster moods made me uneasy.
One afternoon, I was "working" (I put that in quotes because after a while, I started putting every card in the "paid in full" pile) when a voice suddenly boomed across the room.
"MY NAME IS BOB JOHNSON AND MY MOTHER DIED LAST NIGHT."
I turned to see an older man, standing in the doorway of the funeral home. He wore a Seahawkes cap, and a windbreaker and his sweatpants were down around his ankles. He stood in the doorway, pant less, waiting for something to happen. I, of course, was the only person around at the moment.
"Wha...what...can I--"
"MY NAME IS BOB JOHNSON AND MY MOTHER DIED LAST NIGHT."
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, what do I do? Why are his pants off? Why is he yelling? Was I the first person he was telling about his mother? Is he unwell or is this the typical scenario for when someone dies? You don't just go to a funeral home and announce it, do you? Don't you have to call someone else first? Like the police? Or...God? Why are his pants off???
He started to yell again and I thundered, "DO YOU NEED SOME HELP?" Fuck, where is everybody? How can I be the only person here right now? The most worthless one of all. I approached him, slowly. He seemed to understand suddenly that his pants were indeed off. He quickly pulled them up and I lead him to a couch in an adjacent room. I explained that I worked for a company that was doing a job for the funeral home, so I couldn't help him but someone would be along shortly who could.
No Fun walked in then. She saw the man and asked if she could help him.
"MY NAME IS BOB JOHNSON AND MY MOTHER DIED LAST NIGHT."
No Fun didn't miss a beat. She expressed her sympathy and told him she'd be right with him. Then she stormed over to me.
"What is this?" She demanded, icily.
"What?"
"Why is that gentleman sitting there all alone?"
I was about to explain the situation but stopped. Why the hell was I explaining anything to this woman? I was a temp, for crying out loud.
"Because I don't work here", I said, looking her directly in the eye.
TEMPtation called me that evening and asked me what "the situation" was at the funeral home. I told them there was no situation and I wouldn't be reporting for duty anymore.
Poor Bob Johnson. Poor Heather. I even felt bad for No Fun, who probably still works at the funeral home. Every day was gray and dusty, filled with chicken scratch and the details of people's funeral for the last 50 years. Not really an uplifting job.
Temping was good for me; I met a lot of people I've never talked to again and had a lot of ridiculous experiences I could have lived without.
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