Looking east from Neartown to Downtown Houston
This is a photo I took in 1999, one of many I’ve taken of Houston’s multiple skylines (Downtown, Uptown, Medical District) from different angles over the decades I’ve lived here. I’ve had two opportunities to work in skyscrapers downtown, and both of them were so miserable that all the magic of working there became lost on me, but I still love the buildings.
The first was a temp job requiring someone with Mac experience. This was during a time when those skills were difficult to find. Since I’d come to Houston from an industry in which Macs had been used and had my own Mac, I was proficient in all its major software. Though I was in the middle of a miserable cold, I needed the money, so off I went on a Monday morning to report at 8 a.m. It was an hour-plus drive into downtown from where we lived (about twenty-five miles). I had to pay to park. I went to some ridiculously high floor–maybe in the 50s–and the person who’d requested a temp wasn’t there. I was taken to a department and put at a desk near where two young women were talking about their wild weekends. Now and then, they’d glance at me out of the corners of their eyes, and it was clear they had no idea why I was there. Neither did I, and my head felt heavier and heavier. All I wanted to do was put it on the desk and go to sleep.
By 9:30, neither of the Party Girls had done one bit of work, but they’d had lots of visits from other employees. That’s when my contact person arrived. I began to understand, even through my stuffed-up head, what was going on. She was an admin manager and had no use for the Party Girls. She took the work from both their desks, making a comment about how overloaded they were, and handed it to me. As I worked, the Party Girls finally sat down, but they were obviously on the phone whispering to each other.
I worked until noon, when the manager came and told me where I could find places to eat and encouraged me to get some lunch. We rode down in the elevator together, then she went her way, and I found a place to eat soup. When I went back to the office, the Party Girls were huddled with some man I hadn’t seen before. They faded away, and he came to my desk and told me I was being released for the day because there wasn’t enough work to keep me busy.
I was delighted to leave. I drove to the bookstore where my former manager had been transferred to croak out the story to him. From his office, I called the temp agency that had sent me there and was told the reason the company gave for releasing me was because I’d lied about my Mac skills. I’m glad my head didn’t explode all over Tim W’s office. The next time that agency called me with an assignment, I declined. They mailed me a check for my four hours of torture, but I was probably in the hole after gas, parking, and lunch.
I think that was the only bad temp experience I ever had.* However, my future Tale From Working Downtown is worse than this one.
*ETA: I am wrong. I remembered another bad temp experience. But all the rest of them were pretty awesome.
Oh, I just had a flashback to my temping experiences, 16 or 17 years ago. I am certainly glad THOSE days are over! Most of the placements were fine, but one in particular is better left unremembered. *shudder*
I think one of the worst jobs would be running a temp agency. In theory, it sounds good, putting people to work, matching skills with jobs. I wonder what the ratio is for good matches vs. terrible ones.