Andy Was Here '05

Well, it's the end of an era.

I took my first temp job at the age of 19, during a semester I took off to save up money for my move to New York. I had one year of college under my belt, but not any real experience. The girl at the reception desk at the temp agency in Portland, Oregon, took a look at my scanty excuse for a resume and said, "We really can't help you, you, like, don't have any skills."

I asked if I could at least be allowed to take a typing test. "Okay," she sighed.

After they clocked me at 88 wpm, they were a little more interested. At first I did pretty dull things: stuffing envelopes, doing telemarketing for a comedy club, etc. I was better at this stuff than at retail; my manager at Williams-Sonoma at Pioneer Place actually asked me once, "Are you trying to piss me off or are you just stupid?"

Despite that, when I finally arrived in Manhattan, what I thought I wanted more than anything else was to work at the gift shop at Lincoln Center. I thought that would be so great. Soon I realized that if I wanted to be treated like total crap, I could get a lot more than $6.25 an hour. Back to temping I went!

Over the years I did a wide variety of things and worked for many interesting (read: insane) people. Highlights included doing data entry for the Birdathon fundraising drive at the Audubon Society, assisting Neil Cavuto at Fox News (this was before I was politically aware), and being fired without explanation from JP Morgan Partners and BlackRock Financial.

There was a certain comfort in my temp status. If I didn't like my job for some reason, I could call the agency and asked to be reassigned. I had unlimited vacation and sick days -- I just wasn't paid for time off. Furthermore, being a temp -- and being blond to boot -- I benefited greatly from the soft bigotry of low expectations. I could always get myself out of a mess by pleading stupidity.

All that is coming to an end next week as I start my first real job ever. It's kind of intimidating, and maybe not a little pathetic to be finally joining the grown up world of responsibility just six weeks shy of my 31st birthday.

So here I sit on my last day in the investment banking world, God willing. (I'll be here Monday to transition the new person, but don't intend to "do" anything.) The filing is done. The loose ends are tied. Expense reports submitted. Saltine crumbs wiped off the desk. And though there won't be any physical, tangible proof of my existence left behind, I like to think that the Legend of Andy the Temp will live on here as it does elsewhere.