8-09-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #173 (Working Temp in NYC, Getting the jobs and NOT Calling In Sick)

In a funny way, sitting there sort of felt like being in a police line up -- only our crime was to be an office temp for hire. Waiting there in the lineup, most of the workers preferred not to make eye contact or talk to anybody, but there was the occasional extrovert who’d attempt to reach out and strike up conversations, friendships, even.

To work, I’d bring along a big tote bag with a book or two, a notebook to write in, makeup, hairbrush, sanitary supplies when needed, extra shoes, food. In the era before cell phones, we didn’t tote any such electronic devices around (how the hell did we live or do anything before them? Blows my mind!).

Sometimes -- because I lived south of Houston Street and because I earned a good reputation as a reliable worker who NEVER called in sick (through fifteen years of temping it’s true: I did NOT call in sick, ever) -- Denise at Accurate would say it was OK for me to just call in to the office to see about work and not wait around, which I found dispiriting and kind of hated doing.

But otherwise, when they would change the rules back to playing the waiting room game again, I’d be there with my comrades-in-temps, between assignments, sitting there patiently (or not), waiting for a job in the front Accurate office (then located on the 21^st floor, 2 WTC in the World Trade Center before it fell in 2001).

There was a back office with two or three desks where Denise and the counselors received their phonecalls from the firms, probably a 10 by 12 -foot room pretty crammed up with people and furniture (like an old sweat shop).

But us worker bees waited in the front office, a 12 by 15 foot- room if that, occupied by a receptionist desk, a copier, a fax machine, two typewriter desks (for testing applicants on their typing speed and accuracy), and about eight chairs in an L formation to the left of the door, in the corner.

In one of those chairs, waiting around for work one December, I started writing my first Christmas song, “Xmas Wish List,” which I still sing in December when the mood calls for a rockin’ Christmas song. The chorus goes, “Since you’ve been asking/I guess I’ll tell you/How ‘bout a blender, candles and a cat suit?/Imported Olives, purple leather gloves/and a sweetheart who’ll love me, too?”

8-08-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #172 (Working Temp in NYC, Getting the jobs)

All right. But before we describe those many wonderful clerical/secretarial tasks mentioned in the previous post, a few words about actually GETTING the work (in the pre-computer age):

First of all, I had to call around to find a temp agency that I could work with, a place that would appreciate and utilize my talents, experience, and work ethic. That wound up being Accurate Temporaries in downtown NYC. I had to go there, dress nice, interview, register, take a typing test. Once in, I was pretty much on (unspoken) probation. But then, once I started and completed about five assignments, the people in the temp office actually started remembering my name, my face.

So, to get the work, I’d call the office. For example:

“Hello, Accurate. This is Lauren Agnelli. Are there any jobs I could fill for you from now through August 31^st?”  Or I’d also ask, “Is Denise available for a minute?”  Denise was one of the counselors and the office manager and I liked her very down-to-earth, Working Girl manner, accent, and directness. 

Denise was tall, big boned, with hazel eyes and dark, straight hair that was longish and in a kind of flip. She was an attractive woman who was only about five years older than me, I thought. Then again, we might have been the same age, but as a very responsible office manager with the power to hire and fire, she seemed somehow older. I have to thank her time and again for keeping me working through those crazy eighties and even nuttier nineties.

But rather than calling on the phone, Accurate Temporaries preferred for their temps to actually wait around in the office and sit on chairs against the wall, huddled next to each other. That way, when the call came in for a temp worker, Accurate could just give one of the waiting workers the nod, scrawl down the information on a piece of paper, and send them out to work right away.

Of course, some people never got called to work, so those unlucky ones waited around for two, three hours in the office, then went home, empty handed and heavy hearted. . .

8-07-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #171 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, substance beyond style)

What kind of work was a young temp(orary secretary) in NYC in the 1980’s called upon to do?  First of all, we weren’t office administrators, we were secretaries. And really, I thought clerical work was terribly easy especially before technology arrived. I generally worked for Accurate Temporaries, but also did some work for Kelly Girls, I think.

The hardest thing about temping was dealing with new people, new personalities, constantly. Some were nice, some not so nice; some were assholes, some were evil. Regardless, you had to maintain good relationships with them AND remember names and faces.

With practice and necessity, I became pretty good at short term name recall and temporary relationships.

At work, we had any number of clerical tasks or duties. The main categories: 1. answering phones/reception; 2. Making phone calls for the bosses; 3. Taking dictation and/or transcribing taped memos with a Dictaphone; 4. Doing personal errands for the bosses; 5. Making photocopies on Xerox machines; 6. Sending faxes; 7. Filing; 8. Lastly,  perhaps one of my favorite tasks: Typing drafts from pages of handwritten notes, on a typewriter, usually on IBM Selectrics -- large, clunky, loud machines that had removable font balls and, if you were lucky, had white correction strips so you could cover your mistakes, cleanly and fast. 

Let’s explore each one of the previous clerical/secretarial tasks in more thrilling detail. . .

8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, going beyond style. . .)

8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, beyond style. . .)

Looking back, it would seem that yuppie fashion wasn’t meant to be sexy because that might threaten the balance of power and the status quo because, as a wise person was known to say, “Women have half the money is this world, and all the pussy.” Translated: if sex is power, and money is a given, the sex can be withheld as a bartering chip (a la Lysistrata) -- so sex IS the true power.

But, Power (with a capital P) always was and is sexy and so, the powerful players in the yuppie world didn’t have to dress sexily, no sirree. At times I’d look at outfits some of the women in offices wore and thought them quite deplorable. . . but then again, there will always be those who can’t help but choose unflattering clothes. Their talents are to be found elsewhere, in other ways. . . so who am I to talk?

I always strove to dress in very classic, unexciting ways, with preppy blouses or sweaters, jackets, skirts and shoes. . . I really liked a pair of 2-inch heeled loafers that I had, and classic black pumps with no more than 1 ½ or 2-inch heels. My hair was always in some sort of medium-length pageboy, as I feel most comfortable with hair that’s non-attention getting. Maybe it was because I had to get work in places where they needed people to not stand out and look sort of bland. Sure, I can play that part: bland girl in a glam office.

But then again, even though these palaces of power were well heeled, places where I worked weren’t in glamour fields: they were mostly investment firms (Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs), some architecture offices, and the large pharmaceutical firm, Bristol Myers-Squibb. I worked uptown and down, but preferred downtown.

The World Trade Centers -- and World Financial Center -- were cool places to be working in the ‘80’s. In the proximity of Wall Street and all that downtown Manhattan history, I couldn’t help but feel the excitement in the streets and on the subway.

But the things I had to do in most of these offices were so easy I used to laugh, inwardly, that they paid me to work. . .