When I got to work last night there was no email asking me to stay, so as of this morning I am officially out of a job. That's fine, the word is out to the different branches of my temp agency so I should be employed again very soon. Still, I'm sorry to see this job end. The job was about ninety-eight percent downtime, so I got all of my writing for the site done at work.
That is also where I got all of my web browsing done, what with the very fast network connection and eight hours to kill. I thought I would miss the high speed Internet until I realized that I developed most of my browsing habits to keep busy at work. I had so much time available I was able to read every section of the newspaper every day just to fill two hours.
Best of all, I could wear jeans. I tried to stay tidy when I started the job, because it was second shift and I saw many of the day people. When I went to third shift, I stopped combing my hair. I was the only person in the building other than the security guard so why should I comb? In fact, why should I shampoo regularly when I can just put my freshly washed hair in a braid and leave it for three days?
Unfortunately, those shifts were flukes for my temp place. Not only am I going to have to shampoo, I'm most likely going to have to work a day shift. I have a day shift phobia, mainly because the only day job I have ever had was the worst job in the entire world. I like working nights. Give me a shift that starts between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon and I am happy as can be.
Working days might be okay as a temp. I like being a temp because if you show up every day and do your job, you are automatically a superstar. Plus, it's harder to become a disgruntled employee. I was at my most recent job for almost fifteen months and I could see the company start to slide. The customer service practices that I used were virtually ignored by the very people who had trained me to do a good job.
While it was almost all downtime, when I had to work I had to work. I answered a help desk phone for a software place and when a customer had software problems it was a big deal. They measured revenue loss by the minute when they had a software problem so things had to happen fast when I did get a call. I had to write up the issue and page the techs and fill them in and keep the customer updated on how the repair was going.
I was still doing my job but over the last year I watched the morale of the techs plummet. They are a bitter bunch and if I had been a permanent employee I probably would have joined the bitter crowd. As a temp I knew that I would someday move on to another company with a different set of bitter employees and by the time I got sick of them, well, it would most likely be time for another job.
Because my unemployment has been looming for a couple of months, quite a few readers wrote to ask, "Why don't you just be a writer?" Well...hmm. I'm not ready to make that leap. I have no network of freelance connections, I haven't even tried to get that started. I don't think I know how to get that started although I bet M. Giant and Trash could help me if I asked. I'm sure I could find out on my own too, it's just that every time I look into branching out I start to obsess on working for the Weekly World News.
I would love to write for the Weekly World News (and not just because of their Elvis articles) but I can never find out where to send submissions, or if they even accept them. Other than that, I am lured to MAD magazine. I know where to submit but I don't know if I'm funny enough for MAD. There are probably other publications that would be a fit for me, I'll find that out when I start looking.
For now I'm going to continue hounding my temp place to find me something else because I sure do enjoy having a steady paycheck. I will also feel free to enjoy this break though; once I have a new job I might have to start shampooing again.