A Day in the Life of a Temp

I am no longer a bum living with my parents, I have a job, thank you very much. Alright, I still live with my parents, but I am now the owner of a shiny little temp job for a couple of months - which is perfect for giving me a bit of cash, and some more time before I have to commit to anything any more permanent.You could say I am procrastinating with the whole grown up thing...but who isn’t?

Anyway, back to the joys of temping. I’ve worked in quite a few short term, temporary jobs over the years – it comes with the territory of moving around a lot – but this is the first one in a few years, so I am getting reacquainted with the good, and not so good, side of temping.

Firstly, I work five minutes walk from my parents place – the ultimate in buminess and by far the easiest commute of my life. I even get to come home for lunch. I remember being super jealous of my friends at primary school who lived nearby and could go home for lunch. Eat your heart out, kids!

I have a pretty good office set up – desk by the window with, an albeit marginal, sea view. There is a fully stocked kitchen – I'm talking Milo, a dishwasher, microwave, even a sandwich press. This is luxury compared to my fully health and safety compliant kitchen in my London office, which despite the considerable size and wealth of the private sector company I worked for, basically consisted of a cold water tap because no one could possibly hurt themselves on that. Whilst I have been utilising the coffee plungers and fridge to the full extent in my current job, I have not been making the most of it as much as the guy I saw cooking a steak on the sandwich press at 10am in the morning last Wednesday – legend.

My job is definitely not challenging. I am a glorified paper pusher at the moment, sometimes with a bit of highlighting thrown in there, just to mix it up, so I don’t care too much about it. Ideally, I’d rather be doing something I am invested in, and not feel like such a rookie, as the new kid on the block. The upside however is that it’s definitely less stressful and not only do I get a full one hour lunch break, but I actually leave the office at 5pm every day – the work life balance is definitely better here than in London. Plus, we have morning tea every Thursday – with sausage rolls, I might add - and every day, our half of the floor gather round to do the quiz from the paper. At least I can impress with my general knowledge skills.

This is the sign on the shredder at work. Sometimes I feel like I should wear this sign.

And of course, sometimes things are lost in translation when you’re working as part of a new team. Yesterday, when I couldn’t fit a lengthy title into the predefined box on the system, I asked my boss if it would be too gangster if we took the ‘g’s off the end of a couple of the words ending in ‘ing’. I’m not sure they get my sense of humour just yet.

And the best part is the money, of course – first full week’s pay cheque the other day - you beauty! Next thing on the agenda? Getting myself a sweet ride.