Must think she's chairwoman of the board

 On a new project not real interesting in most respects but we had an incident the other day that can only be described as Bizarre, with a capital B. That rhymes with C. And that stands for Crazy Temp. OK, enough Music Man. I love show tunes, but I digress.

One morning recently, at the beginning of the workday, I was sitting in our workroom with only one other temp with me. We basically were minding our own business and getting about the business of clicking. Without warning, in walks some chick, total stranger, pushing a chair. Chair had wheels, people, she wasn't working that hard. And looked like she never had.

So she launches into this long, bizarre explanation about how she and some other temps had been on a project in this room before us and they got shut down but now they had a new project and they had been promised that they would have the same room and everything and could she just exchange this shitty chair for the really good chair over there that she had during the last project and -- SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Fortunately, I said that with my eyes, not my lips. The other person in the room looked at this person and said,  "I don't know what to tell you." I knew exactly what to tell her, though, and that was GET THE FUCK OUT. Again, I used my eyes, not my lips, and she got the message. She turned around, still pushing the chair, saying "We lost our office, we lost our computers, we lost our chairs."

I really wanted to explain to her that none of those things were actually hers.  Temp, oddly enough, is short for temporary. Clearly, she doesn't get that, since she spent the rest of the day trying to take stuff out of the room my project is in. When we started to get hostile, she sent a surrogate to get a table. A table. This poor schmo walks in, asks if he can take this table. Small, like an end table. Not sure why she wanted it so bad. I explained that he was unlikely to leave the room in one piece if he tried to take the table. Principle had come into play, after all. That, finally, was the end of the madness.

There is no telling what leads to this kind of madness. I've said before, all a temp has is his chair, but I have never suggested you could keep the same chair from project to project. Apparently, this woman is an agency favorite and is rolled over from one project to the next. I suppose that could lead to a sense of entitlement. On the other hand, how is somebody too stupid to understand "temporary" competent enough to keep getting rolled over from one project to the next? Something to think about.

Temps deserve their reputation

Just got an email from a buddy of mine who apparently is working on Sundays, so good for him. Unfortunately for him, it's not all positive. The email reads, in its entirety:

Why do temps floss  at their table?  That should be banned by every agency. A guy is doing it now. It is disgusting.

I have no comment, because words fail me.

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This is why they don't trust us

There is a general perception about temps. It consists mainly of the central theme that we can't be trusted. This explains much of the shabby treatment temps get.

That said, temps earn that treatment almost every day. Maybe not all temps, maybe not all the time, but enough to make the rap stick. The other day, the woman about whom I have been warned, in a conversation with another temp, blurted out, "This is document review, there are no ethics."

I have no idea what the conversation was about, but I immediately recognized this as an attitude that is at the root of the problems this industry labors under. In short, temps are not trusted to be professional because far too many temps, even if not a majority, demonstrate through word and deed that they cannot be trusted. Face it, if you were an attorney at the firm employing that temp, and you heard that statement, how would you feel about temps as a group?

Don't cry to me about everybody being unfairly tarred with the same brush. Too many temps take the attitude that, since they aren't really "practicing law" in any meaningful way, they also no longer are bound by the ethical obligations incumbent upon attorneys. They take shortcuts, code documents poorly, lie about their hours, spend hours on the phone when they're being paid to work, blah blah blah blah blah. We've all seen it. Well, guess what? So have the firms that hire us. So don't bitch about getting no respect.

I'm sure it's them, not you

So, the woman who sits across from me, about whom I was warned, has proven to be every bit the joy I was led to believe. Maybe I'm being petty, but this woman is living down to my every expectation. She talks A LOT and says nothing, but she does so at full volume. No inside voice here -- this woman sounds like Foghorn Leghorn, only dumber.  She seems to be determined to see how many times a day she can kick me under the table "accidentally" -- I was surprised to learn her legs were long enough to reach me -- and she just, in general, makes me pray daily for this project to end. I am thinking that, as a veteran temp, she looks a lot better on paper than in person.

Oddly enough, she gave me confirmation the other day that I am not the only person upon whom she has this effect (good grammar, bitches -- live with it). She apparently feels deserving of more lofty, dare I say permanent, employment, and is baffled by her lack of success, stating

I've had like 15 interviews over the last few years, but none of them were callbacks. They were all first interviews.

Go figure.

What decade is this?

There's a guy on the project, I have no idea what his name is -- come on, you know I don't do names -- who was wearing a sweater today draped around his shoulders, with the sleeves tied together under his neck. First of all, it's fucking June in DC -- it was 80 degrees today, despite being overcast and rainy all day. In other words, hot and humid. Not a lot of call for sweaters. Second, we're working in a couple file rooms -- hell, they didn't even bother to take the shelves out before they stuck us in here -- where the circulation of air conditioning clearly was not a priority. This raises the obvious question, WHO THE FUCK EVEN BRINGS A FUCKING SWEATER TO A HOT FUCKING ROOM ON A HOT FUCKING DAY? Sorry for shouting. Anyway, without knowing this bonehead's name, I am certain it is something like Devlon or some shit like that. Probably has Roman numerals after his name. He looks like a fucking Devlon. Or maybe a Heathcliff. On the other hand, I don't see this guy as the gardener of Wuthering Heights, or whatever the fuck Heathcliff was. Maybe that was Lady Chatterly's Lover. It's all the same to me. And I'm not EVEN going to get into the questions he emails to the associate. It's too depressing.

Where is the line between petty and important?

I think it is important to draw a line between petty complaints and important ones. The woman who sits across from me, about whom I have already been warned, is driving me crazy in ways that are both important and petty. First, she's a moron, but she has been keeping that largely to herself and has stopped asking moronic questions. This is good, and indicates that she can at least be aware of when she is being a moron.

However, she has a number of personal quirks, shall we say, that make her irritating to work next to. The first is petty, and I freely admit that. Headphones and music generally negate this particular problem, but that doesn't make it less irritating. She's a grunter. Not like a pig, but more like someone lifting weights, but someone who is not lifting really fucking heavy weights. She apparently breathes -- FUCKING ALWAYS -- by drawing in a breath, holding it, and then letting it out with a very audible exhale. Kind of like she's taking a shit that doesn't want to come out and she holds her breath until after the push. Sorry, but that's what it sounds like. Petty, I know, but you sit next to that all fucking day and tell me how you like it.

The other thing that bothers me at this point, other than her monumental stupidity, is here apparent lack of awareness of where she is. She is clearly a veteran temp. (She also is clearly the sort of temp that made Temp Town a place no one wanted to be. More on that later.) That means she knows that you don't take phone calls at your desk. Even if she weren't a veteran temp, we were told explicitly -- as we always are at the beginning of every project -- that cell phones are to be put on silent ring and that all calls are to be taken outside of the work area.

This sack is oh-for-two. Her phone rings loud as Judgment Day, and she takes the call without budging. Same for outgoing calls -- like she's in a fucking phone booth. I'm not a big rules guy, but I actually believe some rules make sense. This is one of them. No fucking phone calls in the workspace. And yet, I know that if I say anything to her, I will be the one who is the subject of a complaint to the agency. Pisses me off -- I would much rather tell her that I will shove the phone up her ass if she makes one more call at her desk, but instead I have to take the victim role and complain to the agency. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Don't get me wrong. As soon as I finish this post, I'm sending an email to the agency. But I think we all know that, instead of her getting an email telling her to knock it off, the agency will send an email to everyone saying, "Please don't use your cell phones at your desk." This sack will never think it's directed at her, she'll keep doing it, and at some point I will have to kill her. Just sayin'.

At least I got a good seat

As everyone knows, where your seat is is half the battle, especially if the project sucks, which this one does. Yet another 40-hour, five-days-a-week piece of shit. If you're going to drive my commuting costs up 20 percent, could you please increase my pay? The answer, apparently, is "no."

So, anyway, new project started today. Bad hours, bad rate (but not that bad, apparently) and very rigid rules. Narrow window to get your eight hours in each day, no chance of overtime and excellent chance of not even getting your 40. Great. On top of all that, a friend emailed me to see where (or whether) I was working, and when I told him what I was working on, he sent me this:

Oh god, this temp named [some chick's name] is working on that project. She just left this one. Enjoy working with her. She's a treat. . . She is Major League whack job.

Unfortunately, a) he was right on all counts, and b) she sits directly across from me in a small room. Still weighing the suicide/homicide options.

On the other hand, I'm working again. And I got a great seat, neighbors notwithstanding.