In The Land of Homophobes

I can't help it. Sometimes my anger gets the better of me, and I get sick of peoples' crap, and I tell them so. I should just shut up about it because they end up hating me and I end up being ostracized for being some kind of PC asshole and blah blah blah.

Just now, a group of annoying co-workers who I'm only tangentially related to were blabbing VERY LOUDLY right behind my desk about the Big Revelation this week that Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter is...*SHOCK!*...gay. WELL, you would think JK Rowling had announced he was a child-molesting serial killer. They just went ON and ON and ON.

"This is what happens when stupid celebrities open their big mouths and say stupid crap when they should just shut the hell up. She needs to just shut up."

"Aren't these books supposed to be for KIDS?"

"I can see Harry Potter all grown up having to go to therapy because he'd been touched by the head wizard."

"It's just like the Catholic Church with the molesting priests."

WAIT WHAT? This is when I just couldn't hold my tongue any longer. "You guys," I said, a little annoyed, "just because he's gay doesn't mean he's a child molester..." and these words are not even out of my mouth when everyone just gives me a look of death and says "We're just joking, HELLO, JOKE? I guess you can't take a joke, etc." Like I'm the annoying feminist bitch ruining everyone's fun.

"She just did it to make millions more dollars," one of them said.

"Um, no," says I, "if anything, she just lost a LOT MORE of her audience for saying that."

"Come on, guys, let's go talk about NON-OFFENSIVE things somewhere else..." blah blah blah and they leave.

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES. GODDAMMIT.

Then, yesterday was Stripper Pumpkin Meeting #2. I went simply for the blog factor. The meeting was an exercise in torture. The idea sucked so hard that no one had any ideas for it, and no one wanted to help until another higher up female exec comes in and says, "let's make sure one of the strippers is male." To which the few ladies were like "yeah!" and the men were PISSED. I mean PISSED.

"That won't make any sense at all!" protested the original idea guy.

"Uh, yeah, and strippers with pumpkins for heads makes a lot of sense to begin with," says I. My stupid mouth. He gave me a look of death and insisted it went up for a vote. Of course, all the men said Nay but there was a woman in charge of the whole project so she wrote down "Ken Doll" anyway. HA!

The reason this is bad is because it causes me to Stand Out, and that's never good as a temp. You don't want to be That Feminist Pushy Bitch. You want to be the "uh I think that girl does something here." So I need to shut up. But it's hard sometimes.

Stripper Pumpkins

Seeing as Halloween is coming up next week, my department is preparing for the big Halloween party the building throws every year. It's sort of a big deal. There is a costume contest, a cook-off, and a pumpkin carving contest. I have worked here in the past when we've made absolutely amazing, intricately carved pumpkins. Because I am working in a creative art department who has won the contest several years in a row, I was excited to be included in the Pumpkin Meeting today to discuss what to do this year.

I shot out of the gate strong, with a suggestion that since the Sweeney Todd movie is about to come out, we should do Sweeney Todd pumpkins. We could have one pumpkin slicing another one's neck and pumpkin guts spilling out all over. The crowning glory of it would be the pumpkins turned into pumpkin pies (if you know the story you will know that that is the raddest idea ever). People liked this. We talked on it further. Some people threw out other great suggestions. Indiana Jones theme with eyeball soup, Transformers pumpkins, Britney Spears with her little pumpkins being taken away (ugggh, I know), Dead Man's Party with bloody dripping disco ball pumpkin, etc. Someone asked for something politically topical so I suggested Pumpkins Without Health Insurance, which was just a joke but they sort of ran with it and had some funny ideas.

BUT then This One Guy decides to chime in.

"Stripper Pumpkins," says he.

We all just sort of stare at him.

"Like, in what sense?" asked we.

"You know, like, get some Barbies and put pumpkin heads on them and they're naked and wrapped around stripper poles."

Crickets.

We go about our business, discussing other ideas, and it's all put to vote. Sweeney Todd is way ahead with Britney (uggh, I know) a close second. Then This One Guy says, "don't forget Stripper Pumpkins." So they put it to the vote, and EVERY MAN IN THE ROOM (which of course there are more men than women) RAISES HIS HAND.

So, Stripper Pumpkins it is. You can't even CARVE anything with that. It's not even clever. You fucking idiots.

Meanwhile, Southern California is burning to the ground and my boss has only this to say, "I don't know how you feel about capital punishment, but the only way to stop them is if they take all these arsonists and fucking burn them to death on television for everyone to see. They should just fucking burn them, because fire is the only thing they fear." Uhhhh.

I'll Give YOU A Green Footprint

This morning we had a meeting in which the one truly socially conscious leader of the department, Harried Harriet (she is overworked) went over all the current recycling initiatives in place. This includes recycling everything from batteries, CDs, DVDs, papers, plastics, you name it, and you can probably recycle it in some manner. People laughed and talked through her whole presentation.

I know first hand that it has been a tooth and nail fight to get even the most rudimentary systems in place for reducing, re-using, and recycling in the department. For instance, everyone was given their very own free mug with the studio logo on it, made from recycled glass, and very fine looking indeed. Has this stopped anyone from using paper and Styrofoam cups several times a day for their stupid coffee? No. Does a totally free, never-ending water pitcher keep people from using one-use water bottles that are then thrown into the trash? No. Does anyone seem to notice that there's a recycling bin DIRECTLY NEXT to the trash? I've griped on this before, I know, but I just don't understand how it can be that hard to move your hand two inches to the right.

I shouldn't be surprised. Just the other day, one dude in the department, when told he can recycle 1, 2, and 3 plastics in the bin, looked around in wonder and said, "They have NUMBERS?" as if he'd just awakened on the moon. In my role as temp, I could only sit in today's meeting and try to look attentive while everyone joked and complained about having to hear about stupid green initiatives. I wish, just for one second, people would stop and take a look at their place in the world and how their choices affect everyone around them. I do genuinely see a begrudging change happening, however. At least there ARE recycling bins now, and people have a vague sense that someone might nag them if they don't use them.

In other news, my current assignment from heaven is scheduled to be ending at the end of November. As much as I detest the actual details of my job, the perk of sitting next to husband and being at leisurely hours and having a rad computer and being able to listen to music and not having to answer someone's phone or report when I'm going to the bathroom are significant. The jockeying between myself and my co-worker to continue in our appointed roles has begun in earnest. There is a tender hope that both of us will be renewed for many more months, but there is no guarantee of such a thing happening. I realized last week I had better get a good chunk of actual work done so as to look like I'm Totally Productive. This also means dressing slightly more professionally (EVER so slightly, dear reader, I can't begin to try that hard) and pretending I'm thinking hard whenever Scrubb comes around. I'm not sure how much this can mask the fact that I've been Totally Un-Productive. I'll let you know in a month.

You Can Always Walk Away

Forgive my long absence, dear reader.

I have been under tight computer scrutiny at my current assignment and haven't gotten much of a chance to post. Obviously, I don't seem to care enough about that scrutiny anymore, because here I am.

I am currently temping in a department where I worked before, long ago. I know these people well. I can walk these rows of cubicles in my sleep. I worked here as a temp for two years, and I'm back for more, apparently. I was asked to return by my boss, who we'll call Mr. Scrubb. Scrubb is a giant, lumbering Mac master who is the lord of all spacetime in his domain.

He is a rad boss. His views on politics and humanity are appalling, but the dude is wonderfully hands-off. For the first time in years, I am sort of on my own schedule. Getting in exactly to the minute on time is not a big deal, and I can take however long I need for lunch. And I do, my friend, I truly do. He has told me that he doesn't mind if I surf the web or whatever I need to do, as long as the work gets done. He also fully understands that I am a human with a real life who doesn't want to temp for a living, and is very flexible about letting me go to auditions and stuff. Sweet.

Yesterday, Scrubb and I were talking about a co-worker's talent for making chocolate chip cookies. We both agreed they were some of the best homemade chocolate chip cookies ever. Scrubb says he won't use the co-worker's recipe, however, "as a matter of principle." You see, the recipe is reportedly Hilary Clinton's. "Of all of the women that could possibly become president first, why does it have to be HER?" he moaned. Man, those conservatives hate them some Hilary Clinton.

I am also now not answering phones for anyone in this position. This means I can wear headphones and listen to music all day if I so choose. And I do choose, I truly do. I get to work with graphics and Adobe CS3 and all the fun that goes with that. Unfortunately, what I am doing could only politely be classified as creative drudgery. My job is to digitally archive hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of old non-digital artwork to be added to the company's database. This involves lots of inventorying of closets and warehouses full of hand-drawn drawings, making charts and tallies, a hell of a lot of scanning, and a soul-crushing supply of data entry. There is enough work here for several people for I'm guessing at least 10 years. It's nuts.

I sort of hit some kind of data entry mental wall today, and kind of lost my mind for about an hour there. I just sat staring blankly at the screen and felt that if I had to add one more keyword to the asset metadata I was going to LOSE MY SHIT and kill people. My hands started literally shaking and my breath was rapid and my chest tight. In situations like this, it is best to know that you can always walk away, even if for a bit. It can take quite a while for your co-workers to notice or care that you aren't at your desk. Why, you could be anywhere! Bathroom, copier, meeting, who knows? I recommend, instead of head-butting your screen, to go outside if you can and take a nice, long walk. If outside is not available to you, try taking some personal nap time in your car or, worst case scenario, in a bathroom stall. You can even use the old "I'm a smoker" excuse and duck out several times a day for 15 minutes at a time. I left for almost an hour and no one noticed.

Not even my husband noticed, who, through an amazing network of bizarre circumstances, happens to be working in the cubicle next to me. This would be absolute heaven, except, you know, we're at work. And we have to work. On stupid work things. But in general, it is absolutely lovely to be only a few feet away from husband. It's a sort of exercise in torture and patience and comedic, well-timed coughing.

To update, because I'm sure you're wondering, why is husband there? Well, he just got hired back on, after almost two years freelancing in his old job. They finally threw him a bone. So this means husband is legit, and that we will soon be receiving health benefits. Hooray for that. I'd say it's a mixed feeling this time, more of a once bitten, twice shy distrust of the stability of the job and the studio in general but hooray anyway!

I will return soon to flesh out the rest of the characters inhabiting my work world. I just wanted to establish that yes, I am alive, well, and temping away in continued indentured servitude, albeit in a calmer, nicer, and less annoying way.

Say goodbye to me, and let me hear your footsteps as you walk away.

Supposedly, tomorrow is the end of my assignment with King Lear. I was invited to a special going-away dinner for him at a fancy restaurant tomorrow night, but there's no way in hell I'm going to sit there and watch 20 people spend my husband's salary in one night on steaks and alcohol (the animosity about my husband's salary, dear reader, is because he was laid off from this very studio for budgetary reasons).

The King has become rather grumpy as of late, as grumpy as a Englishman will show on the outside at least, which means inside he is a fuming chaotic ball of hate. Hate is the right word, for he's truly come to hate America and all its inefficiencies. Yes, it's not because of our politics, nor our greed, nor our shoddy accents that KL hates America, it's because he has to be slightly inconvenienced on occasion.

For instance: The other day, he wanted to mail a letter, but the postage rate went up and he only had 39 cent stamps! *flabberghastation!*

Also: The studio travel agents apparently are total nincompoops because they can't guarantee him a window seat in first class for a last-minute flight booking!

And: He left a check for the pool man in the refrigerator and the pool man didn't find it! What kind of idiots do we have around here in the USA?

And on and on. And on. And on.

It seems that once people have money, they seem to forget that they are living on Planet Earth and start thinking they live on Planet Themselves. King Lear is endlessly complaining to me about his misfortunes, expecting me to grieve with him. I am NEVER going to feel sorry for you, sir, no matter how much you complain that you sold your car and ONLY got $45,000 in cash for it. That is almost double my yearly salary, sir. I will not pity you for the endless hours you spend on the phone nattering at your builder in London, where you are doing the practically unheard of task of building a gigantic new home in Soho for millions and millions of pounds. I don't care that your gargantuan art collection hasn't yet arrived to England's shores from their shipment out of the ports of Los Angeles.

Have fun rolling around in your riches, wherever you go from here, sir. You go alone, with no one to love, and no one to love you. I hope you find whatever it is that fills the hole, and I hope it's something to do with charity and giving and realizing that the world owes you nothing, not even a more efficient postal forwarding system.

"You Must Be So Bored!"

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that line around here. "You must be so bored!"

You must never, ever, ever, never agree with this statement. If you ever say, "Yes, I am bored," you are asking for a world of hurt. If, as a temp, you agree that you are bored, you will immediately be sent to the salt mines of filing or some other horrendous task. Your freedom and your autonomy will be sacrificed, possibly for the rest of your assignment. That's when the others come at you with things they've been putting off for years, like cleaning out stock rooms, inventorying supplies, even dusting and cleaning. Do not ever fall for this trap.

Even if you are bored out of your mind and feel as if you could go stark raving mad at any moment, never show your hand. As long as there is the Internet in front of your face or a book in your hand or even a frickin pen and paper for doodling, you are not "bored."

Trust me on this.

How Green Was My Dummy

There's this thing that King Lear does that might very well cause me to lose my mind.

It's simple, really. So simple in fact that only an idiot would have any confusion about it.

It's his inability to recycle.

Lear has a black, regular trash can in which to discard things. Sitting DIRECTLY next to it, SO CLOSE THAT IT'S EVEN TOUCHING, is a recycling bin. The recycling bin takes such varied items as plastics and mixed papers. Really, you can throw just about anything in there, and it'll get recycled.

Every day, I go in and see huge amounts of paper and plastic water bottles in his regular trash bin. I grit my teeth, pull the stuff out, and move it to the recycle bin. I drop hints. I give dirty looks. It doesn't matter. You'd think he'd notice that all his papers are sitting in the recycle bin and that the trash bin seems to be emptying itself magically, but I guess he doesn't. It MUST be that he doesn't notice, because I don't want to hear that he doesn't care.

This, again, is a completely commonplace phenomenon company-wide, even though this studio is considered to be a company on the forefront of green technology and practices. People don't CARE. They don't get it, they don't see it, and they don't care. There is opportunity all around them to recycle, to power down, to conserve in general and they just don't do it.

I think social ostracism is the only way to make it happen. As a temp, this involves making sure that your disdain and disgust is voiced loudly and with purpose. You can get away with this more as a temp than a real employee because you are, on some level, seen as the objective observer. "Can you BELIEVE these people, putting water bottles in the trash?" I say, "Why are they even USING water bottles when there's a water cooler right there and they have their own glasses?" "Why the hell did you leave your monitor on overnight?" "You ordered a plastic takeout box and then ate it there? Why not use a plate?" "Wait, you want me to print out a 168 page PDF when it's totally readable online?" "Who was the numbskull who ordered virgin paper?" etc.

The bin is one inch to your left, sir. One inch.

Cheapskates

There is a phenomenon I've found in the executive set of the movie studio system that drives me insane. Shitty tipping. I'm not sure what the deal is, but these wheelers and dealers take their high rolling executives out to VERY fancy restaurants several times a week, but seem to have NO sense of how to tip. They generally tip about 10% or LESS.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? You're not even paying for it yourself! The company is reimbursing you! Pay the poor server their share! You were probably snotty and annoying and high maintenance anyway!

For instance, King Lear just brought me a receipt from a VERY schmancy restaurant where he entertained several clients. The Bill came to $525.55, and he tipped only $60!!! By my calculations, a proper tip would have been almost double that. And it's not because he's British. I had another extremely high up boss a while back who wouldn't tip over 7%. I wanted to scream at her.

This happens across the board for practically everyone I've worked with. If I were a server, if I saw studio people coming, I'd probably spit in their food.

Nitter Natter

King Lear is something of a crank. A British crank. He likes to go on long, sort of boring, almost academically lazy rants on whatever pops into his head. When I say long, I mean like a good half an hour. The outgoing assistant warned me about this, but truly, there's nothing I can do to stop it. Even having my patent vacant, glazed-over expression of complete disinterest doesn't seem to work.

So far the rant topics have included:

• How people in America don't make any sense
  
• How our travel agents don't seem to understand how to reserve a hotel
  
• How Americans can't seem to get the mail system down - why can't I send something registered mail? (you can!)
  
• America sucks because I can't send my taxes in by courier
  
• Los Angeleans are the fakest, most evil people ever (ok, I can't argue with him on that one)
• My temporary apartment isn't a penthouse, it's only one bedroom
• One time I had to stay in a hotel room that faced another wall and it had no light and it was dark
  
• Kids in America get to have school buses and marching bands and in my day we walked to school and had no marching bands
  
• The people in the cafeteria are so inept that you have to explain every little detail about your order to them or they'll burn your toast
• In my day my town had only one movie theatre and we saw Papillon with Easy Rider and we liked it

Etc. I'm boring myself even typing this.

Flush

I prayed for an easy assignment after the preceeding nightmare.

What I have is something a bit awkward.

My new boss, we'll call him King Lear, is (was?) a President here. It seems he has been deposed. I am here because his assistant was re-assigned and I am to see out the end of his term. He is something of a lame duck. Apparently the office used to be nonstop activity but now people don't call him or have their weekly meetings with him because he's been fired-ish.

I'll get to more on all of that later. What really matters to me is that I'm typing this because it's 6:12 PM and I'm still here because he's been in his private bathroom for 53 minutes and doesn't seem to be leaving. I have to go. I have a yoga class at 6:30.

The question is, do I just leave? Knock on the bathroom door? It's a dilemma.

Me No KNow How So Good To Writ

Yesterday, SS pulled me into her office with a very serious look.

"Before you leave, I need you to do something for me," she wheezed. "You must talk to UV about her emails."

"Hurgh?" says I.

"Her syntax and grammar are terrible. You have to fix it. Tell her I'm very particular about such things. Tell her you or I need to approve everything she writes before it goes out."

"I don't think I can do that, it's not really my place."

You doofus. You hired her. Her lack of literary smarts was right there on her resume, remember? You specifically WANTED someone inexperienced and ignorant. You said so yourself. Enjoy your long slog in grammar hell. Heh heh heh.

Goodbye, Mary Poppins, don't stay away too long

After some maneuvering on several peoples' parts last week, it seems that SS cannot in fact keep me shackled to my desk in perpetuity, and must in fact set me free tomorrow at 6 PM. Under the terms of the agreement, she remains under the false impression that I will return to help her move, and I get out of here without having to chew any limbs off.

I am going through my process of packing away all traces of my existence from the environment. Gone am I from all computer systems, drawers, desks, and phones. I've transferred power to poor UV and made her and SS feel confident that the move is the best for all of us. SS keeps saying things like, "you're not really leaving are you? Tell me you aren't. What if UV doesn't know this or this or this?"

The answer is: I don't care! She will learn. Just as I did. I came in here with no instructions, and I've given her a wealth of knowledge. Now it is her time to shine on, crazy diamond!

My agency called to ask about upcoming assignments. In the process of talking to my boss there, I found out that everyone fully knows the dread of SS and is absolutely amazed that I made it as far as I did. "She actually said she loves you!" one staffer mused, "that's impossible!" While I agree that it is impossible because SS doesn't have a heart, I realized that they knew far more about this lady than they let on when they sent me in. I found out that one day a few years ago when they were out of temps, SS actually made the president of the temp company go in to answer her damn phones. Unbelievable.

My boss said, "if we ever have any extra movie tickets, we're sending them to you!" as if that would somehow make up for the months taken off my life by this lady. I think I have officially, after working there for six years (*shiver*), earned full street cred and have climbed as high as I can on the respect ladder at the agency. They'd better send me to a damn Disneyland job after this. I need to coast for a while.

A Truly Educated Music Assistant

This just overheard from Unwitting Victim, the new assistant, who started yesterday: "Who's Aimee Mann?"

*double forehead slap*

They are perfect for each other.

A Truly Educated Music Executive

SS was just holding a CD from the band Rise Against, asking, "Is this band Rise Against The Machinery? You know, the band with that guy Tom Morello? Didn't they break up?"

*slapping forehead*

Out Of Town, Not Out Of My Hair

SS never ceases to amaze me in her selfishness. She left Friday for a trip to the UK and will be gone for ten days. After she'd left, a delivery of bribery cookies came in from a desperate record label (stuff like this comes in often - flowers, candies, even iPods). These cookies were the fresh, perishable kind, not the kind you can save. They looked awfully yummy. I called SS and said:

"These cookies came in, they are perishable, what would you like me to do with them?" *hint hint hint*
"Well, can you messenger them to me?"
"At the airport?"
"No, I guess that won't work. Well..."
(Just say it, say "why don't you just take them home and enjoy them with your significant other")
"Go ahead and put them in the refrigerator and I'll see if they are still good when I get back."

You selfish ho-beast. Seriously, the thought didn't even cross her mind to offer them to me.

So, I should be happy because she is gone to England and shouldn't bother me this week, right? WRONG. I came in to several messages from her and have been on the phone with her for such stupid reasons as, "They did not put me in room 909 which is my favorite room!" and "I want to know what my meal per diem is so I can know how much I'm going to have to fork out myself," and "You HAVE to change my seat going back, I CAN'T sit by the lavatory!!" I answer "uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," and then generally do nothing, because seriously, fuck you.

Better still, this morning the Office Services dudes came in and deposited a whole load of boxes at my desk. "What's this for?" says I. "Moving," says they. "Well, you don't expect ME to pack this place, right? I mean, this is YOUR job. I mean, you are Office Services. That's what you do. Right? ....right?" "Nope," says they, "you gotta pack it."

I called SS in her damn swanky British hotel room and I did it, friends, I said, "I'm sorry but I don't think I'm the person you're looking for. I'm not good at moving things. You'll have to find somebody else. I'd rather not." She came back with, "Oh, don't worry, we'll make the TEMP do it." "SS, I AM the temp." "Oh right, sorry, I meant the new girl. We'll make the new girl do it. I know you are better than that." "That's right, I really am. I can't do this."

I'm a little bit shocked at myself and very proud. Thank you, GDT! I'll be messengering you some fresh cookies today.

I'd Rather Not

Holy Of Holies, Sal has finally hired an assistant! From all I can glean, she went for the least qualified, least interesting wet noodle that walked through the door. She was so unmemorable that I can't even picture her face or anything about her. SS had several applicants who were extremely intelligent, well-versed in music, and educated. This was too threatening for her. "I'm having a problem with loyalty lately," she mutters often, "I don't trust anyone." As well you shouldn't, lady.

Looking at her resume, SS hired the youngest girl with no knowledge of music. Clever. Now the office will be entirely without music expertise. From Unwitting Victim's resume:

Objective:
To find full time permanent employment, where I can utilize my skills and experience to grow with a stable company. *YAWN*
Skills:
Capable of multi-tasking. Self Starter as well as a team player. Detail oriented and organized. Not detail-oriented enough, however, to use proper grammar and punctuation on her resume. *Sigh*

I pity poor UV.

Does this mean I'm finally off the hook in two weeks and get to take my leave? Not by SS's clock. She wants me to stay on for the worst of reasons. "They're moving my office, and I want you to help with the move."

Umm...no. I'm pretty sure I'm an administrative assistant, not a mover. They have people for that. This is a huge office with an entire room devoted to a CD library. There's crap everywhere. Moving this place would be a gargantuan effort, not to mention the fact that there will already be an assistant here. I have a back injury.

For all these reasons and more, I'm going to employ a method I just learned from Guillermo Del Toro, the director. It's a magic phrase called, "I'd rather not." It's a polite way of saying no in a manner that no one can dispute. Temps, ad this to your oeuvre! It can be used in so many ways:

• Boss wants you to give them your personal phone number. "I'd rather not."
• Boss asks you to do expense reports for them for dinners that were clearly not business-related. "I'd rather not."
• Boss tells you to stay late to help them wank around with stupid crap. "I'd rather not."
• Boss expects you to stay on as her personal slave while she moves offices. "I'd rather not."
• Boss makes you file her divorce child support paperwork. "I'd rather not. NO, REALLY, I'd rather not."

SS has taken a new approach in the way she reprimands me. Because she knows she has no control over me, she's started being passive aggressive to see if that works:

• "When the new girl comes, I won't let her take hour and a half lunches. It's ok with you but not for the new girl."I should note here that she INSISTS I take the long lunch so that she can have time to talk on the phone alone. I'm not complaining.
  
• "When the new girl comes, she will turn on the copier every morning. Don't worry about it, though, you're fine." I DO turn it on, damn you.
  
• "When the new girl comes, make sure she always unlocks my door for me. You don't have to worry about it, but I want her to wait on me hand and foot." Again, poor UV!
  

Hooray for me, though. This shows that I have won the power struggle, and reiterates the Awesome Power Of The Temp. I have finally broken her into realizing the important temp maxim: It's Not Worth The Effort.

No Woman, No Placement

Stereotype Sally likes to make a loud and very vocal point about how she HATES female singers, female voices in general, and female singer/songwriters. Basically anything female and musical, she hates. This reflexively makes my lip curl every time she says it. I can't even pretend to agree with her in any manner. SS will regularly throw out CDs that come in with women in the band without listening. We wonder why women get such shitty representation in music, and I'm seeing it here in action, AND FROM A WOMAN.

The previous assistant seems to think it's because SS is jealous on a deep level of any woman other than herself getting attention.

For an example, there is a movie called (paraphrasing but you'll get the idea) "The Women of Womantown" for which she just did the song placements. THERE ARE NO WOMEN ARTISTS ON THE "THE WOMEN OF WOMANTOWN" SOUNDTRACK. Please tell me a world in which that makes sense. If "woman" is in the title, there ought to be some chicks singing. End of story.

...she still doesn't know I'm a musician.

You've Won This Round, But I'll Be Back

Stereotype Sally is turning me into a jerk.

I'm starting to take it home with me. That's when you know, as a temp, the line has been crossed. I go home and yell at my (insert roommate/relative/significant other here) , bite at my cat, and kick my dog. At least, metaphorically.

I can't let this happen. A temp can never let the boss best her. The previous assistant warned me this would happen. I just didn't think it could happen so soon. The previous assistant was with her for six years. She said it was six years she could never get back. I'm starting to feel that way about minutes.

The thing is that the woman is relentless. She wears you down, like water grinding away at a stone. If only I were turning into something so poetic. The gripes are small, and like water torture, fill my days with endless drops of ridiculousness. There aren't even good examples to share, because they all go by so quickly, but they add up. There are probably only 2 to 3 minute stretches of peace, surrounded by The Crazy.

• Sally spends much of her time on her private line yelling at people. I don't know who she's talking to, or what they did, but there are long periods of fists banging on tables and extended shouting. The rest of the time she is yelling at business associates. When I announce her call to people, I hear them audibly shudder. (Speaking of this, she just slammed down her phone three times in succession, punctuated by "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" It's probably for something trivial, like a doctor's appointment change or something.)
• Right now, she is yelling at someone named Barry, who I think might be her ex-husband. Something about not wanting to be stuck on hockey duty with her son again. There's always some sort of gripe about her poor 16 year old son (who is in therapy, thank god), who just gets yelled at or about nonstop.
  
• Upon going through some files with her, Sally came across one entitled Charity. It had one lonely sheet of paper in it from 1998. "CHARITY? I don't give to charity. Throw this out." Perfect.
• She'll deliberately throw out piles of paper when a recycling bin is exactly one inch next to the trash bin. Don't even get me started on the plastic water bottles. There is a recycling bin right outside the door. It will never get used.
• Almost virtuosic refusal to understand how Outlook or the internet work.
  
• Today she yelled at me because she lost her corporate credit card, as if I was failing her because I couldn't conjure it by sheer will. I don't have your damn card, lady.
• Her crises always begin exactly two minutes before I'm scheduled to leave for lunch or at quitting time. One time, she didn't even make it IN to work until 5:58 PM, and flurried all kinds of crap upon me to finish in two minutes (you'd better believe I leave at 6 on the dot, temp friends, and so must you. you always "have a class to get to.").
• Upon asking her if I could please leave a few minutes early for lunch to attend an audition, Sal totally lost her mind. "AN ACTOR??" she whelped, "I SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEM TO SEND ME NO ACTORS! They're horrible and flaky and unreliable!" "Thanks, lady," says I, "I'll be glad to go." "NONONONO!" says she, "you are GREAT...I meant...other actors." Sure you did.

You can see how all of this is absolutely nothing, but it turns into a lot when it snowballs. You can also notice that none of this is about music, which is what this job is SUPPOSED to be about. That is the heartbreak to me.

As a temp, I must be better than this. Tomorrow, I will start with a comprehensive plan of Emotional Shutting Down that will place the real me so far outside of harm's way that my exterior self will be but a husk, a robotic shell who can do anything any heart-hardened assistant can do: attend to the Beast without getting bitten.

Stereotype Sally and My Long Torture In Music Hell

The woman I'm currently working for is a Music executive. We'll call her Stereotype Sally. We'll call her this because she's every stereotype of a Hollywood executive I've ever encountered. This is the kind of woman who makes me call ahead to restaurants to make sure they have tablecloths, or else she'll bring her own. She's got collagen lips, giant sunglasses, and a better than everyone else attitude. She's got it all.

Stereotype Sally has the wonderful privilege of placing music in films. She detests her job, and worst of all, generally hates music. This is an insult to all musicians. She hates female voices especially ("women's voices are boring and all sound the same!"). She doesn't own a walkman or an MP3 player because she "sure as hell doesn't want to have to listen to music when I'm not at work."

She barely knows how to use a computer. She refuses to learn. She asks me to "MP3 a song to someone," having no idea what that might mean. The office still runs on paper trails - a dinosaur typewriter, hand-written calendar, and a paper rolodex. This drives me nuts because there's a fully functioning Outlook system right in front of her face that she refuses to look at.

Stereotype Sally is a drama queen, and everything that happens to her is a tragedy. If she gets a small paper cut, she absolutely freaks out and yells at the sky, "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? DO YOU SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH?" This weekend, she has to get a hotel for her son who is competing in a hockey tournament in Salt Lake City. "This isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it's almost the worst thing that ever happened to me," she just yelled at me over the phone. I was completely silent. Wow, lady, if getting your son a hotel room is almost the worst thing that ever happened to you, you are a very lucky person and need to shut the hell up.

If she's out on "vacation," or generally out at all (which is most of the time, as she spends only about half of the day in the office, coming in two hours late and leaving two hours early), she is calling me, I'M NOT KIDDING, every three minutes. This is the busiest I've ever been at a job, as there are nonstop orders barked at me and wall to wall CD burning going on whilst essentially doing her job for her.

I'm here because her assistant quit secretly in the dead of night without telling her, probably so she could safely make her escape. I've now been here two months, because she can't seem to take the time to hire someone. This is the trap of being a little too efficient. They don't want to get rid of you. I may have to change my tactic in this regard soon.

I talked to the previous assistant on the phone and the first words out of her mouth were, "LEAVE! Leave NOW, before it's too late! Don't get trapped there! Don't ever give her your cell number or your home number. Don't ever offer to do more than you are given to do, or she will take and take and take until you are nothing but an empty shell." Wow.

That's never good, fellow temps. We all know that it's a bad scene when you come into a situation thinking, "what a falling out was here?" The desk is blank, the drawers empty, the suicide note taped to the computer monitor. Usually in these situations, there are no instructions for the desk, no computer access, and no outside help. You have to wing it.

When you are dealing with someone with such a frenetic, high-energy stress level, the only response is calm silence. For every "SEND THESE STUPID ROSES BACK BECAUSE THE BLOOMS ARE OPEN TOO FAR!!!", you meet it with an emotionless, unimpressed gaze. She begins to back down. Do not cater to the whining or the desperate attempts for pity. "Hildy must have high blood pressure, she's so calm," she says, eyeing me nervously. Don't ever let them engage you in fights. Always be the bigger person. This is the only way to maintain dominance in the working relationship. This way she always knows she is not allowed to give you any crap.

The great joy of this job has been the Amazing Booty Haul. This is a music office, so there is a massive music library, and new music comes in by the stack every day. For some reason, the previous assistant was dumb enough to leave behind TWO iPods filled with library music and hundreds of unwanted CDs. She didn't seem to understand that A) You can re-format the iPods any old way you want, and B) Amoeba or any other used CD store will buy your CDs for CASH MONEY. It's a veritable gold mine here. I've also been able to add hundreds of CDs we've wanted or even are marginally interested in to our collection, which has been a major boon considering we'd never have been able to afford buying this kind of music on our own.

I've learned so much about music from the business perspective, as I have been given the task of listening to the formidable stack of CDs that accumulate on my desk each day. I have become the person I used to hate - I stick a CD in and within 15 seconds I can tell if we're keeping it or not. I used to think this was cold and callous but it's reality and it will certainly help me market my own music more effectively in the future (strongest songs ALWAYS first, make sure artwork is fantastic, label CD with genre). One thing to know is: there's no such thing as unsolicited material. So many CDs come in every day that there's no way to track where everything came from. So fear not, musicians: send away to all your favorite executives. You may get thrown in the trash, but you may just get heard, at least for 15 seconds.

I would SO want this job if it weren't with Stereotype Sally that I had to work. It's ideal. It's brilliant. It's impossible. As a temp, do not forget that your job is to be transitional and seamless. No attachments must be formed. Temping is the ultimate Buddhist meditation.

Mary Temp'ns, Nanny To Execs

If you want this choice position
Have a cheery disposition
Rosy cheeks, no warts
Play games, all sorts

Welcome. I am Hildy, and I work as a temporary administrative assistant for a Major Movie Studio Of Your Choosing. I am well-versed in the ways of The Temp. Eight years of sitting in other people's seats has taught me much about human behavior in the workplace. I've come to find that I have become the Mary Poppins of the temp pool. My job is to go in to messy, unruly situations, remain emotionally distant whilst efficiently tidying up, then gracefully and happily exiting when my time is over as people strain to remember, "who was that one temp we had that one time?"

You must be kind, you must be witty
Very sweet and fairly pretty
Take us on outings, give us treats
Sing songs, bring sweets

For some reason, I have become a magnet for problem cases. I get sent to the Screamers, the Narcissists, and the Truly Inept. Over the years I have worked for everyone from Extremely Important Heads Of Studios to Extremely Unimportant But Always Think They're Extremely Important Peons. I have found that it's usually the lower level executives who have the most strange office rituals and bizarre mental problems.

Never be cross or cruel
Never give us castor oil or gruel
Love us as a son and daughter
And never smell of barley water

These problems range across gender and age. They usually involve power and the wielding and abusing of it. I have learned that very few people know how to treat their assistants with the respect and care they deserve. Either they are used to heavily abusing them and then are confused when I come in because I won't allow it, or they are used to ignoring them and are totally confused when all their needs aren't met by the silent invisible servants who usually cater to them.

If you won't scold and dominate us
We will never give you cause to hate us
We won't hide your spectacles so you can't see
Put toads in your bed or pepper in your tea

It's not just the bosses who are bad. In three seconds, I can assess the absent assistant's position of power by his or her desk. I almost always find confusing organizational methods, a computer packed with spyware, chairs so uncomfortable as to break backs, antiquated filing and computing systems, and doofy pink kitten and inspirational calendars. No, no, no, assistant! This is telling your boss, "please walk all over me."

Hurry nanny, many thanks
Sincerely, Jane and Michael Banks

But don't worry. I am here to fix all these things. I am here to break executives of their poor habits. I am here to make your office more efficient while doing little to nothing different except an energetic power shift that is so subtle you will be uncomfortable and unable to figure out how it happened. I am here to bring order to the whole. I am what you wanted and didn't know you wanted all along. I am your kick in the pants. I am the Temp Whisperer.