Just another day on the job

It is astounding how little happens on this gig that is worth commenting upon -- hence the food-centric focus of this blog lately. I mean, damn, nothing of interest really happens. Temp Town is quiet. Of course, that is partly because it is dying, but so is the rest of the economy. But I digress.

The lack of truly interesting events in Temp Town has prompted me to comment upon the uninteresting. Let's see how that works out.

There currently are a handful of major issues on my project, at least as they affect the lives of temps. Temps, because of the nature of our business, are forced to focus on the lowest common denominators: how long will the project last, is there overtime, what is the rate. Once you get past that, though, and are on a project like this one -- acceptable rate, adequate overtime, no end in sight -- the concerns get really petty. But because the concerns have a real impact on daily comfort, they really aren't that petty. Consider these "major"  recurring "petty" issues on this project:

Return of the Pinesol ninja: While no one was happy about the trash situation that resulted when the agency cut the hours of the janitorial staff in half, I'm not sure anyone would have minded a little less Pinesol. Every day, without fail, if she does nothing else, the woman who tries to keep the office clean mops the kitchen floor and the hallway outside the kitchen that leads out to the reception area. Maybe she doesn't use Pinesol, but she uses something really stinky, and every day, right before noon, she mops. And the whole work space smells like somebody puked and the school janitor came in and cleaned it up with industrial strength pine-based cleanser. I guess I'm glad the floors are clean, but I gotta believe it could be done at some time other than right before lunch. Petty gripe? Hell, yeah. But you put up with it every day and let me know how you feel about it.

Stinky food:  Speaking of stuff that stinks, there is a person on this project who, at least once a week -- often more -- uses the microwave to heat up some fish for lunch or dinner. In case you're wondering, reheated fish smells so bad that it is banned under the Geneva Conventions. The agency actually put up signs in the kitchen informing us that it was not permissible to microwave "odorous foods." Unfortunately, the person who so adores fish doesn't realize that the signs are aimed at him. I have been considering posting a sign that says something along the lines of "Odorous foods means your stinky fish, motherfucker." I doubt the fish-fuck would realize that "motherfucker" meant him.

Vacuuming: Let's face it, you got temps and carpet in the same place, you better vacuum often. Problem is, when? Our project is there from 7 am to 9 pm -- not everybody all the time, but there is always somebody there working during those hours. So when to vacuum? Well, right in the middle of the day, of course. It wasn't daily, but we were enduring vacuuming in the 9 to noon time frame about three days a week for a while, and people were getting a little torqued. I guess somebody complained, because no one has vacuumed in several weeks. So which is worse?

The sign-out sheet: There are about 50 people on this project, and we have a sign in/out notebook in a central location. I'm not sure anybody ever looks at it, but maybe somebody started, because there have been changes lately. For years, the sign-out sheet was two pages, one name per line. You had to write small to avoid encroaching on the entries above and below your sign-in line, but it was easily done and no big deal. So Monday, we came in and instead of two pages, there were 12 or 15. Lots of space for each line, but it could take some page-flipping to find your name. Fortunately, somebody realized that was stupid, and now we're down to about five pages. Seems like a lot of work for a log that I don't think anyone reads. After all, we have to log in and out of the system, which creates an electronic record of how long we were online, and we submit electronic time sheets each week to get paid. It the system login records don't support the time sheet claims, you have a problem. Somehow I doubt that the handwritten login sheet would resolve that problem in your favor. But the old school dies hard. I'm not sure why they think punching a time clock would be worse. More insulting, I guess.

There is a final major/petty issue, but I believe I will save that for a seperate post. For those of you who are contract attorneys, I'm sure a lot of this sounds familiar. For those of you who are not, it probably sounds crazy. Welcome to my world.