� Otto Jespersen, in "Growth and Structure of the English Language"

Thank you. We now return to our regularly scheduled program of flesh-rending. Except, no, it�s more analytical than that. I swear.

I�m starting to wonder if being in bed with the temp agencies, for anything at all � that is to say, for the some-money-is-better-than-no-money � is worth it. That is to say, whether perhaps they do a person more harm than good. Because here�s the situation: Friday afternoon one of my dark lords and masters at Temp Agency A called to tell me about a position coming available soon for which she wanted to "submit me" (for this is the lingo); if I was in, and I said I was, I needed to be available for an interview sometime on Wednesday in case the submission was successful, which result she would convey to me first thing on Monday morning. Let�s never mind right now that it�s well past first thing Monday morning and I haven�t heard a damn thing, and let�s also glide over the fact that said self-submission required a custom revision of my resume, per the temp pimp, "to emphasize all [my] great administrative experience and play down the rest of it" and to sketch myself, via a craven new Personal Information section, in such a way as to suggest that I�m a ruddy-cheeked health and fitness fanatic, a veritable Amazon, who never touches a drop of alcohol and crusades in her spare time for the Seattle implementation of a public smoking ban. Because that�s the kind of person they want to hire, see. But this is the kind of shit you have to eat when you let the temp agencies pull your strings, so I did it � let no one say that I suffer any longer from a surplus of dignity or self-respect or anything like that. So here�s what happens. For those who don�t know, what you�re supposed to do on Monday mornings is call each temp agency you�re registered with and tell them your availability for the week. OK. So I call Temp Agency A and I say Hello I am calling in to say that I�m available all week. Says the temp pimp: "What are you talking about, of course you�re not. We need to keep you off the job so in case they want to see you on Wednesday you can come in at a time that�s convenient to them, and then what if they want to see you and you get the job and they want to start you on Thursday? Oh no, Miss, this week you�re the farthest thing from available." I call Temp Agency B and Temp Agency C and I say Good morning, I just wanted to let you know that with the possible exception of an interview sometime this Wednesday I am available all week. There�s a pause. And here�s what B and C snottily say: "*Oh.* Thanks for keeping us advised, but as I�m sure you know, our primary responsibility is to those candidates who have put their trust in us and who haven�t gone and signed up with other agencies, and by the way you should also keep in mind that we really can�t expect our clients to be letting temps go off to interviews whenever they want and abandoning the business for hours at a time. But please, feel free to call us if you ever dissolve your commitments to the other agencies and will truly be available from eight to six Monday through Friday."

And of course the first part of that is crap, because the agencies don�t care if you�re going off on interviews as long as the interviews are ones they have arranged � in which they have a financial stake � and also because agencies actually market temps to client companies in terms of their interview appeal: I mean, if you�re a company looking to get a qualified temp in, the fact that other companies are looking over the warm body that will potentially sit in your reception area is de facto shorthand for her desirability. See? So, keeping in mind the fact that any full-time, post-temp, health-insured job I�d get through an agency would be one in the intellectual Bermuda triangle of administrator-coordinator-assistant and that would have a maximum starting salary of around $X, am I not hosed if I do and hosed if I don�t? You will remember that my rationale for applying to take those editing classes at the UW Extension even though I seriously doubt I�ll learn anything I don�t already know is that the credential and the networking might one day help me get a job, and that if my starting salary is $cost of tuition more than I would have made as an admin-coord-ass it will have been worth it. Might I not also make the case that self-affiliation with temp agencies is a self-fulfilling prophecy of the same dead-end-jobness? I wish I knew. I�ve said here before that I admire those who aren�t hung up on their professional titles nor on accumulating a Bellevueworthy amount of disposable income per month at any ethical price, I�ve said that I�d be willing for the sake of some stability to earn not much money at a boring and unchallenging job where I worked with people with whom I had nothing in common, I�ve made approving reference to Steve�s belief that no effort is wasted and that every however shitty experience has something not necessarily shitty to impart. I don�t mean to be difficult and I hope you don�t think that I was lying, but � at this moment I am reflecting upon the particulars of this go-go-administrative job I have preliminarily whored myself out for, how the pay is decent as far as temp work goes and despite that how the prospect of my employment future playing out in that office fills me with deep despair and self-hatred � maybe I wasn�t telling the whole truth either. What if I could find a way to pare my living expenses down to a bare hold-the-bourbon minimum and said good riddance to the temp agencies while anchoring my days with a different brand of stability, I mean one that would involve a codified program of German and Latin study, volunteer work and especially whatever volunteer writing and editing opportunities I could get my hands on (maybe I could even suck up the rest of my non-dignity and go begging for some of them to Cheshire fatcat Terry), and resume-centric self-betterment while also knocking myself out as never before tracking that elusive good job? For one thing, in that scenario I would not be at the mercy of temp agencies and those who staff them, I would have essentially said I�m better than that � and meant it. And is there or is there not a possibility that by doing so I�d make myself more appealing to the kind of company and for the kind of position that really would make me happy? Even if only in a subliminal way: if I were being interviewed for, say, an editorial position that would involve the use of both lobes of my brain on a regular basis, and in the interview I presented myself as a person who spent the time between jobs in these pursuits, then the inferences are (a) here is a civic-minded candidate with diverse intellectual interests who is also self confident enough to ride out a spell of unemployment and (b; this one may be � or, fuck, may not be, what do I know � iffier) she has to have saved up a little bit of money from previous jobs to afford to be able to do this, therefore this editorial job that pays considerably better than temping is consistent with what she�s accustomed to asking for and getting. Doesn�t that make a certain kind of sense? I mean, come on, my self-imposed deadline is mid-May, am I not entitled to think that by my luck, and by luck I mean merely being recognized as smart and competent and meritorious of being offered a job to, will come back to me by then?

Or am I rationalizing? I wish I knew. All I can tell you is that everything having to do with the temp agencies is killing me one self-respecting molecule at a time.

Typo of the week, incidentally, from Friday afternoon while I was monkey-customizing my resume: summa dum laude. That�s me!