Since my layoff a few months ago, I’ve been living off my surprisingly decent unemployment checks. But that can’t last forever, so, with much fanfare (at least personally) I’ve started heading down the temp work avenue of interest.
The advantages are several-fold:
1) Nothing serious and/or potentially long term
2) There could POTENTIALLY be some variety (though different colored envelope stuffing isn’t quite what I’m looking for when I say that)
3) Sitting in the same desk for 40-50 hours a week puts a cramp in both your ass and general well-being, so the potential to travel between a a couple desks seems healthier.
So, after several resume submissions, a call back. While I will keep the name of the particular staffing agency hush-hush for fear of me not getting work, we’ll call them the A-Plus Agency.
The A-Plus Agency required that all potential temps pass a series of rather mundane but understandably reasonable tests to qualify for their illustrious staffing agency. The first was a typing test that proved to be easy as hell, a product of my years studying under the helm of Mavis Beacon and other surprisingly effective typing courses.
The second, third and forth were tests of your ability to do various tasks within Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Where typing test was basic, these proved surprisingly tough. Luckily, most questions only required some trial, error and some menu browsing to figure out. Others proved almost trick-question easy, i.e. change the highlighted font to italic.
Altogether, these tests told me I was just swell at utilizing the various keys on a keyboard to impart a series of Bill Gates inspired moves within a digital enterprise. Great, let’s call Mom and tell her how good I am at changing the transition on a series of informational slides in Powerpoint.
And the woman in charge here said that I did great, too! Fill out some tax paperwork, drop off some extra copies of the resume and I am done for the day. The parting words were something like those of a bad first date, don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Needless to say, this party may or may not be interested in what I can bring to the table as this particular temp has not gotten any letter stuffing assignments. Will patience, or calls into the corporate headquarters of A-Plus Agency change anything? Time may tell.
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