Week Two, Monday Night
Building Lobby, 5:12pm
I walk into the building and then stop, confused, when I see the group of temps sitting in the lobby.
“What’s everyone doing out here?”
“New floor tonight, remember? We don’t know where to go,” says Heidi.
“Besides, it’s too early,” says Sara.
“Yeah, they can come get us,” says another.
I sit down, drop my bags, and look imploringly at Sara.
“I could use a Coke,” she admits. “I’ve only had one today. But it’s risky. They said our badges won’t work upstairs anymore. We’ll have to find someone to get us in, and someone to get us out.”
“We’ll find someone. Anyways, worst comes to worst, there has to be a fire exit.”
“I haven’t seen one.”
“Let’s just go already. We could be there by now. Anyone else want anything? No? Back in two secs.”
We take the elevator upstairs and, in our hurry, almost bump into a young guy who is buzzing himself out the door.
Sara smiles sweetly at him and waves her badge.
“Hi, we work here, but we can’t get in and out, so can you just hold the door for us while we get some Coke?”
“The drink,” I murmur as we squeeze ourselves past him.
The guy looks at the elevator, with its doors just opening, and back at us.
“Thanks,” says Sara firmly, locking her gaze on him, and he holds the door.
We get our M n M’s (me) and Cokes (me and Sara) in record time and get back downstairs.
“Any sign of Julien or Amber?”
“Not yet.”
“I think we’re going to have Amber tonight.”
“She’s such a stick insect,” I hear one of them say.
“She is a stick insect,” I agree. “It’s not healthy to be that thin.”
“No, I said she’s sycophantic.”
“What? She’s what?”
“Sycophantic. You know. Kissing up to the big shots. Saying what they want to hear.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. Sycophantic. Definitely.”
I’m going to have to start giving Gen Y more credit. Sycophantic. Sick..oh..
I pour the first few M n M’s out into my hand, and pause in amazement. They are all orange.
What are the chances of the first five, no, there are six of them in my hand, what are the mathematical odds that they would all come out the same color?
“Hey you guys,” I interrupt.
“…applied for like, ten more jobs today and — what?” Courtney stops, impatient.
“Um –” I look inside the pack and see, to my huge disappointment, that all of them are orange.
“Nothing, sorry.”
They turn back to each other.
“And it’s getting to the point where someone will call me and I’ll be like, wait, WHO are you? And WHAT job are you saying I’m trying get with you?
She shrugs. “I can’t keep track of them all. I just keep clicking apply, apply, apply, so by the time they call, I have no clue who they are.”
“Don’t you do cover letters?” the youngest temp, Jenny, who is 19, asks.
“No.”
“Huh,” says Jenny, frowning. “Maybe I should stop doing cover letters.”
“You get way more done. I applied to ten jobs in an hour today.”
“Ten in an hour!”
“Yep. That’s what you gotta do, now. ‘Cause everyone’s doing the same thing.”
Julien arrives, smiling.
“Hello everyone. Tonight is the NEW FLOOR! Aren’t you all excited? You’re going to be on the floor with the day staff, and they don’t finish their shift for another half an hour, so you have to be very quiet.
First I’ll take you through the floor, so you can see the day staff, and then we’ll talk for a few minutes in the kitchen, which is your new break room.”
We gather our bags and get up.
For some reason I am nervous. I had just gotten used to the first floor, and now, everything was changing again.
Plus, I feel a bit in awe of the day staff. Those people have real jobs. They are full time, regular, salaried staff, and they are quick on the computer system, which I still found very confusing, and they’ve dealt with hundreds of difficult customers and situations. I haven’t had any angry customers yet. I think this has something to do with the fact that I sound like I’m eight years old on the phone, but still.
And how are the day staff going to see me? I’m just a temp. They probably won’t even see me at all.
Julien stops us again before the door and shushes us. Then he swipes his badge, the door beeps, and we walk in.
It’s a big, wide open floor. There are rows upon rows of cubes, most of them with twentysomethings from a wide range of backgrounds, wearing headsets, talking quietly and tapping away on the keyboards at the same time. It’s disorienting and I don’t feel like I belong.
We file past them, looking at them like they are animals in a zoo. Most of them keep looking at their computer screens.
We get back to the kitchen, which is a large, bright, white room that is empty, save for a few chairs.
“We’ll be getting more chairs in the next few days,” says Julien.
Most of us perch along the windowsills and look out into the darkening evening.
“So, that’s the ground floor,” says Julien. “What do you think?”
“Not so far to jump,” says a temp, still looking out the window.
7:05pm, Ground Floor
I finish a call to a customer and hurry towards the kitchen, late for the 7pm break.
I buzz the door to the hallway and stand back as a glamorous looking day staffer approaches. I hold the door open for her.
She starts to walk past me, then she flounces around in a dramatic turn. She fixes me with an imposing look and an almost flirtatious smile.
She utters two words:
“Your perfume.”
It’s said as a statement, but I know it’s a question.
I obediently tell her the brand.
She gives an almost inperceptible nod, a half-smile, and she swoops off.
She’s gone.
I am left behind, standing in the doorway, still holding the door open. I linger to savour the moment. And her fragrance, which smells good too, though I’m perplexed that I can’t recognize it.
Maybe I’ll like the ground floor after all.
After a few more seconds, I head on into the kitchen.
I blink in the bright glare and see that Courtney has a murderous expression on her face.
“I don’t know all the details yet,” Vanessa is saying, leaning back in her seat. She’s got her arms crossed behind her head.
“She got a full time offer too,” Heidi tells me.
“I’ve got a couple other offers too, though, from the outside, so I have to decide what to do.”
I feel slightly sick to my stomach. I know I should be happy for Vanessa, but two full time offers have gone out to temps already, and not to me?
“I got an outside offer today,” comes Justin’s voice. “From Disney Cruises.”
“Disney!”
“A cruise ship?”
“No way!”
“How fun!”
“What would you do?”
Justin’s eyes dart from face to face until he is satisfied that he has everyone’s attention.
“Dress up as a character, I guess, and entertain kids.”
“What does it pay?”
He tells us the figure. This considerably dampens the excitement in the room.
“Well, but that includes room and board on the ship, doesn’t it,” someone slowly says.
“Yeah.”
“Oh well then, that’s pretty good.”
“And, it’s Disney. Disney would be a great name to have on your resume.”
“Yeah, man, you should do it. You’re young, you don’t have any ties, you can go anywhere, see the world.”
“I’m thinking about it,” says Justin. “I’m considering my options.”
Mike saunters into the room and the temps stop talking.
“Did I hear someone’s going on a McDonalds run?”
Melissa and Courtney confirm they’ll be going on the second break. As she goes up to get his order, I see the smile on her face, and I hope again that he won’t hurt her feelings.
Then again, I couldn’t know how much trouble I would get into, tomorrow evening, all for saying yes to a few McDonalds french fries.
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