The Land of the Temps

I have been working as a temp at a biotech company for the last 6 months while I looked for a decent job. Quite the interesting experience. In case you're not familiar with the world of temping, all temps have to get hired through an agency, which put us through a series of very basic computer tests to make sure we sorta know what we're doing before they send us out to interview for positions. Then our test scores are actually sent with us when we interview so that prospective employers can get an idea of what kind of computer skills we have. Sounds like a fairly reasonable process, doesn't it? You figure that's gotta weed out some of the less competent people. So why is it that the majority of the temps in my office are total idiots?! (Ok, perhaps this sounds a little mean, but they REALLY are!)

For example, last week one of the guys in my office actually asked me how to change the format of a page in Word from portrait to landscape. Ok. Then he couldn't figure out how to get the page to print. (Um, you press "print"?) Another guy was given the job of putting some files away that were in a box in alphabetical order with tabs that said A, B C, etc. So what does he do? He just shoved them into the file drawer in any old order he wanted to. That just doesn't make sense! If these were really difficult jobs, I might understand an error or two, but trust me, none of the things we are asked to do require a whole lot of brain power. That's why I'm constantly amazed at how often these people screw things up.

Here's another great example: Last Friday, we had to make a couple hundred binders for a meeting and then deliver them to various people throughout the company. One of the temps - let's just call her G - took a bunch of binders on a dolly to deliver to another building. One of these binders just happened to be the only one that had classified information in it. When she got to her destination, lo and behold, she realized that one of the binders had somehow disappeared along the way. (I'll give you three guesses which binder it was.) She called us in a panic and wanted to know what she should do. Well, the logical thing would be to back track and see if she could find it - which she did, and it wasn't there. So of course, we all started a massive hunt to find the thing before we had to sound like total idiots and report it to our boss and security.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I were carting a bunch of things on a dolly, I would probably notice if something fell off. But apparently, G was pulling the dolly behind her and talking on her cell phone at the same time - strangely enough, she never heard a thing. (Roll eyes here). Yes, accidents DO happen, but this just seems like a major act of incompetence to me.

To make a long story short, we never found the darn binder, even though the whole company was put on alert to look for it. Someone must have picked it up, liked what they saw, and kept it. I was expecting heads to roll, but we all still had our jobs (including G) when we went home on Friday, although we were all praying that the confidential information wouldn't show up on the evening news that night. Needless to say, I doubt that my office will be handling any classified information again in the near future.

Yes, I realize that I'm complaining, but I assure you that after the two-hundredth time of the same person asking you how to make text bold in Excel, you would be teetering on the edge, too. And besides, if you can't complain on your blog, where can ya? I'm just relieved that Friday is my last day here. I can't WAIT to see who they bring in to take my place...haha