The Early Romance of the Temp Job
Tags: Epcot, Autobiography, Temp Work, Temporary Staffing, Timeshare

random PWS (Philadelphia)

The Early Romance of the Temp Job

I’m going to start with a confession, having been a member, still a member, of the so-called “gig economy” of self-employed. I’m audited regularly by the way, if not by the IRS, then by Nikki at H&R Block, a joy to work with. But then I’ve also been a temp worker on a W2, like for Manpower and like that.

That was when I first moved to Portland, some decades back, and before my wife to be and I started our own business, catering to the needs of mostly non-profit NGOs (with some exceptions) in the Greater Portland metro area.

Around the same time, I was writing about my so-called “Housing Project” (I was going for a plain vanilla “simple” aesthetic, with my so-called “Language Project” and “Education Project” and a couple more).

In the rear view mirror, my vision was echoed in the “timeshare” vacation homes idea, big in Florida. However without the temp job nearby, how could one afford the B&B? These went together, in my “whole world is EPCOT / Tomorrowland” futuristic writings (a brand of science fiction I’ve since realized, and taken to marketing as Martian Math).

Enough about me.

1980s selfie

The romance of the early temp job (note change in word order vis-a-vis my title) is: I’ve always wanted to drive a freight train (true); fly an airplane (true); be an astronaut (maybe not). Our answers will vary, but with a captured imagination, inspired, ready to go, the prospect of being this or that is exciting. The main downside of any one of those roles: the “opportunity cost” of not getting to do something else instead. “But I could’ve been a star in…”. Being a this or that, at the expense of all else, gets to be existentially difficult at times, are you with me?

So the idea is: within reason, we’ll be able to train you, quite adequately, for a lot of roles that admittedly do not require a lifetime of commitment, yet optionally do. You work on the railroad for awhile, knowing you’ve not consigned your life away, not yet, and although it’s hard work, you also have time to study the local language and be a tourist (this might be in Siberia or some other desolate place, maybe Utah or whatever). You haven’t jumped blindly into railroad work out of no other choices. You look at the job as like a college course. You sign up for maybe a whole year or two, a very non-trivial decision. Or you try summer camp.

A lot of us will quickly think of jobs we wouldn’t want temps to do. “You don’t just waltz in the door and do brain surgery” or whatever. That’s correct. I agree. However don’t forget natural talent. As a temp, you get training for, and try out being, a hotel worker, and you find out you really enjoy the business and the labyrinth has pathways letting you work to higher levels of responsibility. People willing to take responsibility, gladly, out of choice, are a rare enough commodity in any line of work, it will sometimes seem at least.

As someone with skills in hotels, in kitchens, in bed making, and finding all the garbage, you bop around the world now checking out other dimensions. You have the resort hotel worker lifestyle nailed, for some seasons. You might come back to this later, as an older worker. Even though not everyone is turning to admire you the same way, you still have the same Wonder Woman abilities, in terms of making things go well in someone’s treasured hotel.

working with AFSC (Quaker founded)

What I’ve been describing, in phenomenological terms, is what it feels like to have the whole world and your whole life still in front of you. The sense of possibilities may be enormous, but in proportion, if you’re humble, will be your sense of needing experience, of wanting to sample, to try out. Think of all the sports you might be good at, could adopt as a hobby.

I knew a soldier who saw the world from many angles, and dreamed of someday living at peace and doing hang gliding, maybe with a small van (he ended up with a left hand drive Mitsubishi). Dreams do come true. However then it’s on to the next one (the next dream). “What if the next one is not as nice?” and so on. Again, full circle, that’s why we want to try stuff on for size. What if, in the cab of that freight train I always wanted to be in, I realize I don’t love this role after all? Wouldn’t it help to discover this early? A lot of people feel trapped in a job they hate, but have to do, because they never were permitted to check out more options. They feel railroaded, boxed in, coerced. I’m far from saying I don’t sometimes see it that way too. My “they” includes a “me too” sometimes. “Them” as in “us” one might put it.

So do we empathize with the romantic fantasies of the temp worker then? Have I captured much of the spirit? A kind of wanderlust.

Back to me again.

My first job out of college.

Sometime late in my senior year, with many concerns about what the “real world” was to bring, I hit on the idea of teaching high school as a wonderful option. The guidance counselors were skeptical however. That’s not what I’d trained for. I’d been specializing in philosophy. This looked like a tough case, and I’m not saying it wasn’t. However I did manage to find work as a high school teacher, after lots of botched interviews (actually “botched” is the wrong word — the way we discover “good fit” or “not a good fit” is we meet and talk about it, we do this in the gig economy just as much).

decades later, a family man

Then I made myself quit, after two years into a successful career. Why? Because I was young, just out of college, and I had this romantic idea I could jump from job to job for awhile and never really commit for the long haul. Even though the teacher gig was amazingly rewarding (not financially, but in other ways), I compelled myself to cut loose. No one asked me to leave. Looking back, I was like skydiving out of an airplane, and starting to wonder if I’d remembered about a parachute.

Fast forward and I’m a temp worker in Portland, Oregon, which will turn out to be my city of residence for years to come. I’d moved here earlier as a little kid but was then abducted by aliens (we moved to Italy, Florida, the Philippines…), and now I was back, with my new “antenna” (sensitivity about the world, what we each uniquely develop).

My conclusion: the romance of the temp worker is best fed when everyone gets to log in to some citizen or member based system to secure basics, like a berth on the ship (Spaceship Earth). Fleeting roles or even longer term ones (and I’ve had many of those) do not usually result in benefits (such as health care) for many years to follow. Making your quality of life so dependent on so-called “employers” is what got us into so many people hating their jobs. And we all suffer when the misery index is high.

The main reason we need a “safety net” I would argue (that was a good term, the New Deal minded should bring it back), is precisely to help people switch jobs, try new roles. The role of a safety netter, someone between roles, one might say, is that of student. We default to “student in the Global U” in GST (that’s the name of a discipline: general systems theory) and at least get some kind of PWS (personal workspace) for ongoing work/study.

Let that police officer (any gender, any breed) who would now like to crew a freighter (ocean going) get some training. Help that vet (of any gender) learn skills far different from those learned so far in the military. By “let” and “help” I mean we do have a legitimate need for bureaucracy and our software infrastructure. We have a lot to gain, as a society, by giving people a safe space to transition, where I use “transition” in the generic sense of “morph” or “transit to a new equilibrium”.

Instead of controlling crowds and firing tear gas, why not work in a bakery for a few months, and join a hang gliding club for fun in between?

That’s the “brave new world” I was hoping to help implement, with all those Projects of mine. The goal is precisely to save jobs from appearing “dead end” and instead making them fun, life-changing experiences. Those wishing to dive in full time, having sampled, into being railway workers, will experience wishes coming true, more like Disney did, versus just living day after day in some ongoing nightmare. Bring back the safety net idea, to increase job satisfaction.