aqua fortis

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Interlude: Temp Jobs I Have Known

Any look at the previous decade of my life would not be complete without some small tribute to the many years I spent working as a temporary secretary. This list is by no means comprehensive. Some temp jobs I've had are too boring to relate; others are so forgettable I've, well, forgotten them. But here, in order of most recent (about a year and a half ago) to least recent (circa 1996), are a few gems.

  •   Stanislaus County Office of Education (various jobs)
  •   City of Modesto Wastewater Treatment Plant and Composting Facility (reorganized an entire file system that hadn't been touched since the 1980s)
  •   Front office support at a school for problem students
  •   Frito-Lay (didn't actually happen – I showed up and nobody knew who ordered the temp)
  •   Stuffing envelopes with fliers advertising various strains of bull sperm for artificial insemination
  •   St. Mary's College (Letters & Science Dean's Assistant – pretty posh gig)
  •   Corporate Interior Services (bookkeeping assistant for office furniture supplier)
  •   Roche Molecular Systems (severely underappreciated receptionist)
  •   John Muir Health Network (helping draft medical group contracts)
  •   Aetna U.S. Healthcare (stuffing and labeling envelopes)
  •   Licensing Office, City of Westminster, London (mostly typing letters, scribbled by a boss with abominable handwriting and a tendency to call people "wretched peasants")
  •   Phaidon Press, London (assistant to a high-strung woman, also with execrable handwriting, who was unable to keep a secretary for more than two weeks)

0 comments: