My inability to say no to things has not helped my cause as a temp. Surely saying no to someone is not that difficult… in my case it is! This is where my filming expedition to Coventry comes in…

When my manager says she is impressed with my work so far, (which makes me question how bad the previous temp must have been) and offers me the chance to get some media training so I can go in and film some workshops, I begin to think my luck has changed. Well at least the chance to ditch the cold calling. So after going through a pile of red tape and a million and one form filling exercises (government organisations thrive on pointless form filling) I wait eagerly for my training.

Generally, getting training means you spend some time learning and developing skills from someone who knows enough about a topic to teach you…. Not here. With 24 hours notice I am told that I need to go and rent a video camera in Soho, and that I am booked on a 6.30am train to go up to Coventry to film a workshop for Children being taught outside the four walls of the classroom. i.e film a load of kids in a church. This is where the alarm bells start to ring.

Firstly, I have never used a video camera. Secondly, surely getting up at some god awful hour in the morning is not part of my temping contract. Getting in at 9, yes. Leaving dead on 5; yes. Getting up when it’s still dark traipsing to Euston and not getting paid for it, NO. But this is where my conscience gets the better of me or where you could equally call me a MUG! This is when most people would just say no and I reluctantly agree. I am a fool!

So off I go to Soho, pick up a camera and a tripod and spend the night teaching myself the art of filming. When I say teach myself the art of filming, I mean trying to turn the stupid thing on and off and pressing record.

This is definitely not what I signed up for. Lesson learnt… I am no Steven Spielberg!

The start of the bad luck...

Still feeling smug and waving my old job in the construction industry good bye, I sign up with a whole load of temping agencies! To me, temping agency’s are like estate agents… a bunch of shitsters that help themselves to your hard earned cash without actually doing anything at all! Anyway moan over…they find me a 4 week contract in a government funded organisation. No interview needed, I turn up on a Monday morning and start as an administrative temp. My feeling of smug begins to disintegrate when I realise I am back in the construction industry. This does not bode well!

So after been told there is actually no desk to sit at I am stuck in what I would only call a prison cell. A glass box situated smack bang in the middle of an open plan office with one tiny desk and a lamp. Great, the whole world can see what I am doing. It is bad enough being in solitary, but having people snoop at your screen makes it a whole lot worse. (I guess no facebook for me!) So after been given a pile of mundane tasks to get on with (the ones that really take five minutes but you try make last a week) I begin to think that temping was not such a great idea. Underpaid and treated like the office dogs body I begin to count down the hours, minutes even seconds of the day. You know it’s bad when you start to schedule in tea and toilet breaks into your day. 9am start work (not a minute before and sometimes 10 minutes after), 9.30 tea break. 10am toilet break. 11am another toilet break, 11.30am. another tea break. You get the picture.

After taking what thought to be a lifetime to finish the first lot of crap they gave me, my luck takes a drastic turn for the worst. Two words…Cold Calling. By this point it’s either laugh or cry. I swore to myself this is one job I would never do. I am defiantly not a sales person. And I definitely don’t like ringing people up trying to flog them something that they clearly don’t want… and as it happens nor do they like receiving the calls. (Funny that!!) This is not a good combination! I am given a script and told to ring 500 schools; I manage to ring five in one day. Oh dear. I have however in this process discovered that I am a fantastic procrastinator and can make myself look really busy when I am actually doing sod all, a trick that has come in very useful!

The weekend can’t come soon enough…

Work in progress...

I am 24 years old... 5 months ago I decided to quit my full time, kind of steady job. When I say kind of, I mean, I got paid every month, but there was always a doubt that this wouldn’t necessarily be the case. When pay didn’t always go in on pay day and when we received an unexpected visit from a bailiff demanding overdue rent you begin to question the financial state of your employer. (Word of advice; if anyone has the unfortunate experience of having an overweight skinhead refusing to leave your office without the 10k the company owes him, offering them a cup of tea makes the experience a lot more pleasant. The Great British tradition of English tea never seems to fail.) Also when your bosses tell you over your works Christmas dinner the company will be screwed by the end of the financial year (merry Christmas by the way...cheers!) you start to think about moving on. Well that’s after you’ve necked the bottle of vodka that your boss has so generously paid for and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu out of principle.

So feeling brave and properly the most part stupid I decided to cut my losses in the hope I would find myself a ‘career’. Without a job to go to I hand in my 4 weeks notice. Yes at this point I am feeling smug... 5 months down the line karma has bitten me on the arse. More of that to come...

Next comes the exit interview with the Chief Executive. As a child I was always told that honesty was the best policy. Telling the chief executive that your chairman is a fat pervert and that you couldn’t stand the sight of him was probably (most definitely) exempt from that saying! Mental note to self: learn to keep my mouth shut!

Anyway, in the process of deciding what I actually want to do with my life I enter the world of temping. Over the next few weeks I will report to you what I can only describe as the most painful experience of my working life so far, amusing for my family (not for me!). From attempting to sack a cleaner to going on a filming expedition to Coventry I bring to you the life of a temp...