Big Chi Town Temping

Today one charismatic former IL senator and one youthfully optimistic Wisco grad got jobs. One is set to run the country, the other to run the copy machine, coffee maker and fax. One is full of determined hope for a better America, the other is full of desperate hope for a permanent real job. One is the President of the United States, the other is a temporary administrative assistant.

Today newspapers are filled with all the minute details of the first day of Obama’s presidency. But I’m going to tell you a little different story about my first day of temp work in Chicago, IL.

First let me lay the ground work that lead up to this day. The past six months have been filled with cover letter, resumes, resume reviews, indeed.com emails, monster.com emails, careerbuilder.com emails, trips to 3 career counselors and unhealthy amount of whatever pale ale was on tap at whatever bar was closest. All of this to understand the reality that unemployment is 7.2% in America, 7.3% in Chicago and college grads, no matter how many revised resumes they send out or how much smoozing they do, are still not finding jobs. Grads who searched 3- 6 months last year now are searching 6-12 months.

So while the path leading to temp work was somewhat physical including getting fed up with Green Bay and moving to Chicago, it is mostly a mental compromise between my dreams and the reality of a depressed economy. So with compromise in mind, I applied to a temp agency, was rejected, applied again, was brushed aside and then finally appeared in person and was given a temp job based on the fact that I look presentable.

And now on to all the gory details of my first day as a temp:

I arrived early of course, coffee and New Yorker in hand, in my most semi-professional garb, aka dress pants, collared shirt and a vest from the gap. My outfit and attitude screamed I can do this job semi-professionally well. My trainer arrived slightly late out of breath and without makeup. She quickly let me in, swiped on some mascara, gave me the grand tour of the five offices, and got me a chair.

Then for the next 8 hours she does paperwork with titles I can’t even pronounce while I man the phones and try not to drop calls. At the end of this training day, I am exceedingly impressed by admin’s ability to multi-task and yet be humble enough to get coffee, and extremely worried I will be expected to be this humble multi-awesomeness myself. I am relieved to learn my only jobs will be to answer phones, collect the mail, get coffee and occasionally make some reservations.

And so here I am for the next week, making nice neat little piles of work for someone else to do, drinking black coffee and pushing buttons. That is now my life as a temp.

It is not the first day of the leader of the free world but it is the first day many more Americans will experience. As companies search to cut corners, they are firing their veteran admins, and hiring cheaper, no insurance necessary temps to fill the void. This job of breath holding, of not knowing if you will have a job next week, has become the life of many not just recent grads but professional administrative assistants.

So no it is not the most glamorous or exciting of first days at work but it is realistic and dare I even say humble. Perhaps one day I can write a book about this most humble of beginnings: Dreams of an Admin, the Audacity of Temp Work, or perhaps just Once when I was a Temp.