Never do anything

‘twiddle my thumbs just for a bit’ Greenday – Longview

Day two of temping hell, and I’m bored out of my mind. Thank god for my notebook and the need to write more on my story (I refuse to call it a novel just yet – it doesn’t sound right for some reason). My role here appears to be exceptionally basic and holds the potential to be duller than… well something really dull. I might have to start smoking again just to give myself something to do.

I started yesterday, arriving at 8:30 and was sat in reception with the other new temp until gone 9am. Turns out our team leader knew next to nothing, not least that we were arriving. She then gave us a quick tour, told us our hours (9am until 5pm with only 30 minutes for lunch – is this even legal?) and sat us down with our team. I then spent about 45 minutes watching the basic process before having a go. I then spent the rest of the day doing someone else’s work for her, being left alone from 2:30 – when she went home early. We’re not exactly talking rocket science here.

So I got in this morning (a little late after a seemingly brilliant idea to catch the later bus which was, of course, extremely late) and got given the relevant passwords and stuff to get onto my pc and phone. I have an area to work with and since then I’ve had nothing to do (it’s now 11am), but at least today’s going quicker than yesterday.

So I am now a temporary metering clerk. This involves the following: I get a specific set of postcodes to work with and assign meter reading jobs to the relevant readers. Most of it is done on the pc and transmitted to their hand held reader every night. Occasionally a request comes through for the same day and I phone that through to the readers. And that’s it. There’s a lot of sitting around doing nothing – but at least I’m being paid decently for it. I have email, but no internet, no games, nothing. I’m not even convinced I can use my email for external personal stuff. I know it’s monitered, but how strictly is anyone’s guess.

On the plus side I spotted a semi decent job in the Guardian to work in local radio (which includes 9 months of initial training – all paid), so fingers crossed there. In the meantime I’m off to stare at a pc for no apparent reason and cross my fingers that something exciting happens.
needless to say, this was written on my notepad at work this morning. It didn’t improve, although I did get a scene of my book written, so it can’t be all bad. Ho-hum, only three more days till the weekend!

Until there is a next time…

xx