Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Vagarious Temps

I'm in a situation with a temp agency that is making me ill. I'm trying for a temp-to-hire office manager position with a non-profit organization. If I get it, I will replace another temp who has been there for awhile. There will be a pre- interview for me on Friday with the President of the organization, and if I pass that test another interview with her staff next week. This troubles me as the temp-to-hire person who is there now is about to get the shaft, but my instinct is to stand up for that individual and help her keep her job. This pre-interview is being done on the sly. I'm not meeting the President at her office, but at a coffeeshop around the corner. We're going to have a bagel and a latte and talk about me. I feel dirty somehow, even though I've never met these people. If I don't go I obviously don't get the job, but if I do go somebody else gets fired. Is there a fundamental flaw in temp agency morality, or is my sense of justice and fair-play somehow overinflated?

So the questions I must ask: Am I really this desperate for full time employment? Does this woman have kids? Is she going to be able to find something else, or end up slinging burgers at the BK Lounge?

I don't know what the working world was like before the rise of temp agencies. As far as I know, they have always existed. There has always been a clerical pool that companies have pulled workers from. I've read a dozen articles that say the romance of a career that lasts a lifetime is dead, that Americans will have half a dozen or more careers in our lifetimes. Why? Why can't I find that one job that is perfect for me and makes me happy. Why must I push someone else out of a perfectly good job, or for that matter why should I be pushed out? It's not that I want to do this, but that I simply don't have any other options at this point in time. The system has removed my options and made me a viscious creature, a predator on the loose culling the herd. Damn, I really need to pay my rent before my landlady changes the locks. Sucks that this chick is gonna be on the street, but it's her or me. I vote for me and then wonder, what has become of me?

3 comments:

Jerome Alicki said...

Huh, yeah I suppose I'm being overly melodramatic about all this. And this is supposedly a "Christian" organization, I don't think they would be that sneaky. The problem must lie with the individual, maybe she deserves the heaveho.

Anonymous said...

I understand the strife you're going through. Going for so long without employment is tough enough. Then, to be placed into this dilemma has to mess you up as well.
But what if, after all your agonizing, the employer chooses not to take you on? How would you feel then when you find your key doesn't work in your apartment door anymore?
You have to focus on your needs first.

Anonymous said...

did the bear get the job?