I'm a spy�

2003-08-02

They're going to hate me. That is, if they don't already hate me.

I got this temp job, filling in for someone going on maternity leave. And I've been bored. Extremely bored. As in had two hours of work to fill eight hours with.

So. I made my first mistake. I asked the other admins for work.

After doing that for two weeks, the managers noticed. The managers are the people that I support. They gave me two more managers to support.

Damned if I'm not still bored. I've got one of the other admins that just comes and dumps her filing on my desk. I am a lowly temp, after all. I should do anything they ask me to do. And I do the filing. Takes a whole ten minutes a day.

What the hell are these people doing with their time? I'm handling twice as many people as the rest of them and I still take work from wherever I can find it to fill my day.

The girl I am filling in for kept trying to tell me everything. How do answer the phone. How to respond in an 'instant-message' conversation.

I kind of feel like I've fallen into an alternate reality. One where people haven't had to prove their value. One where you can get by on habit and job description.

I've felt kind of odd for the past week or so. I've got four managers to work for now. And the two I've most recently acquired keep having 'conversations.' Conversations where they look at me and lower their voices. Then look at me again and close the office door.

I understand that I'm paranoid. But even paranoid people are right some of the time.

I just wish I knew what they were thinking. I'm always afraid I'm not doing a good enough job. Especially since this one is no stretch at all. The stretch is trying to look busy eight hours a day.

Not that it means shit. I could be doing the best job that I know how, and I've been told how, and if someone doesn't like the way I answser their phone, I could be out of a job.

I know I'm doing more than the rest of them. I don't know how and I certainly don't know why. Has this industry never seen a downturn? Have they never had to cut back.

Now I feel like a spy. The people that manager your retirement fund. They are loaded with people that do two hours of work for eight hours of pay.

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