The End is Near!

Friday will be my last day at the temp job. Talk about your basic TGIF.

Now, I've definitely had worse temp assignments. Back in New York, I worked for vindictive psychopaths, a CEO who didn't know how to use email, another CEO who expensed a lap dance to a client, a realtor who dictated memos to his 8 year old son, a broker who advised me to buy a stock that promptly tanked, a loan officer who wanted me to FedEx a document to a company located in the same building, and a guy named Jesus. Not "hay-soos," but "gee-zuss." In my time I've probably asked God for any number of ridiculous things, but I've never felt so awkward as when I queried, "Jesus, may I take my lunch break now?"

I tried to call him "Mr. Garcia," but he said, "You can call me Jesus."

Still, the present gig ranks near the top in terms of boredom. The position has been filled, and I've been "training" the new person for a week and a half now. Umm...I think she's got the hang of it.

Today I received exactly one email, at 8:41 a.m.: I was cc'd on a memo about a phone conference that got moved to later in the afternoon, something that didn't affect me in the slightest.

A few projects came our way today, and to be polite I always said, "Would you like me to do that?" but the new gal would always say, "No, I need the practice, so I prefer to do it now while you're still here and I can ask questions if necessary." An eminently reasonable response, but it still left me with bupkus to do.

I am now openly reading The New York Times there. Go ahead. Make. My. Day.

Some people there have expressed dismay (some of it, I think, genuine) that I am moving on. When pressed for a reason, I have been disciplined enough in the past to respond that I'm looking for an assignment that more closely matches my skills and ambitions. Today somehow what came out of my mouth was, "Well, frankly, I'm tired of sitting around waiting to be handed projects that other people have deemed too boring to bother with."