My New Permanent Temporary Job

I am now a permanent temporary employee of BMO Capital Markets. I’m not sure if the word permanent or temporary scares me more.

Let’s start with why temporary is a terrifying word. First is the obvious. There is very little job security in temporary work; even if it is “permanent temporary” work. It is a waiting game week to week to see if you will still have a job. As rumors of layoffs brew, temps always realize they could be on the chopping block as they were the last hired.

Then there are the living standards that go with temp work. My hard earned temp work gets me $12 an hour with no health insurance or benefits; after taxes that is less than $20,000 a year…IN CHICAGO.

And finally there is the connotation of a temp. Temps are the invisible and ignorable bottom of the BMO barrel. People assume you don’t have a life beyond sitting at a desk and transferring calls; nor ambitions or talents beyond making copies. No one asks what you want to do with your life or what you do with your life out of the office; probably because most financial professionals don’t have lives beyond their desks. It sucks to be the glorified answering machine of the office.

Then there is the word permanent, which is by far scarier. This job is “permanent” because BMO fired quite a few real administrative assistants to hire temps that would work the same job at half the price. BMO still needs phones answered and copies made so I potentially could be doing this job for years. YEARS.

The real fear of permanent comes from the ease of routine and the complacency of my brain to give into the routine. Every morning I take the 6:59 Brown Line train towards the loop. I get off, walk 2.5 blocks to BMO, swipe my card at security and ride up to the top floor before any one else starts their day. I then toast my English muffin, make my coffee and sit down to read the Chicago Tribune’s headlines. After a rigorous hour of online news reading, I head to another random floor to sit at someone else’s desk surrounded by pictures of their loved ones, and mispronounce the names of people whose phones I am hired to answer. At 4 on the dot, I grab my coat and bolt.

It is easy, too easy, and I think I could get into a rut her after only a week. And as Dr. Seuss says “ And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”

BMO is the epitome of Slump, the aftermath of the post-grad Lurch.

P.S. To be clear I am exceedingly appreciative to have a job when the entire nation is in and economic Slump because of the Bush Lurch. I am paying my bills, enjoying everything Chicago has to offer (that cost under 20 bucks) and in general enjoying being young in the big city. But, like most Americans, the fear lies in the future of the slump and in the possibility of permanence. Everybody ruts and most unrut eventually but at the bottom of that deep rut it is difficult to see a future unrutted.