Temping Reconsidered

After my interview on Monday, I debated about calling in to the temp agencies or taking the rest of the week off, with the hopes that I would get a job offer soon. Out of guilt that I was wasting the week and that I needed to reestablish contact with two of my agencies, I called into one on Monday, but they didn’t get back to me with any work. So, after more internal debate, I called into another one on Tuesday.

It’s always a gamble. The agency may call with something appealing, or they may call with something that you don’t want to do, and then if you say no, there’s a mark against you.

This time I gave them my geographic parameters, and of course they called immediately the following day with an assignment outside of those parameters but with a promise that it would be a “fun” job in the “publishing industry” doing administrative work “for a trade show.”

So with visions of myself blowing up balloons for the booth of a book publisher, I acquiesced. It didn’t help my decision-making powers that the agency had woken me up and needed someone within the next two hours.

As it turns out, the company is a publisher of a couple of trade journals and the job is strictly data entry. Three full days of repetitive, mind-numbing data entry. I have to be here at eight, which means I have to get up by 6 a.m., since of course the job is again near Santa Monica. At least this time I get a real computer chair.

Needless to say, I’m in a black, black mood. They have already asked if I could come back next week, and I, of course, said no. Thank god I had the presence of mind to tell the temp agency that I was only available through Friday.

Oddly, at lunch today I ran into one of the few people I know in Los Angeles.

Anyway, I am planning to take next week off to regroup. I already did a review of my finances last night, and I’m not yet in a place where this type of soul-destroying work is financially necessary.

I’m really hoping that the travel industry job comes through. I liked the people, the offices, the hours, and the location, and the job sounds interesting. It’ll be tough to live on half the income I was making in Austin when it is so much more expensive here, but I’ll just have to hope for the best in terms of future job prospects with the company.

As I see it, if that job doesn’t work out, I have some combination of the following options:

1) Telling the temp agencies that I am now primarily interested in interviewing for permanent jobs and will only accept one-day temp assignments (out of fear of getting stuck in another unbearable situation).

2) Revisiting the personal assistant placement agency with an updated resume.

3) Picking a date at which I end the career exploration and submit an application for Los Angeles Public Library (which isn’t a sure thing, as they have a preference for Spanish or Asian language speakers, and there’s no guarantee they would have an opening within what I would consider a reasonable commuting distance). I have to keep in mind the city training that would be involved and the probable six months without benefits and decide whether I want to go down that path here. Perhaps a part-time librarian gig would be the answer.

4) Making a decision by May 1st that I will return to Austin and telling my real estate agent not to lease my place after the current tenants move out in June. This would be motivated by the desire to reduce my “burn rate,” since my living expenses in Austin were 1/3 of what they are here. I would then just make the most of my last two months here and would travel to Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, etc. I’d like to stick it out a couple of years, though, so I hope the job situation isn’t bad enough to drive me to retreating that soon.