Group of People May Contain Traces of Nuts
October 4, 2001
One of the employment agencies I’m with has convinced me to partake in an activity of theirs which they like to term ‘breakfast temping’. After expressing my annoyance that they didn’t seem to have even glanced at my resumé - nowhere did I mention an interest in catering or a preference for early morning working hours - they patiently explained through gritted teeth that breakfast temping has nothing to do with this.
You arrive in our office at 8am and we serve you a hearty breakfast, they explained. They then send you out on any temping jobs they get that morning. I was fairly unenthusiastic - I’ve been talked into this temping business and I’m not really keen on it. As far as I’m concerned, temping is a waste of my time. I’d prefer to further my skills and career - not occupy myself hunched over a photocopier, when the biggest excitement of my working day is a paper jam.
The agency knows full well of my desire to continue in the media or entertainment industries, but managed to make breakfast temping sound cosmopolitan enough to appeal to me. With the current economy, I’m not going to find my ideal full-time job quickly, so I desperately scrabbled for comfort in the thought that temping is a completely - as the name would suggest - temporary arrangement. With a resignating sigh, I arose at 6.30am the next morning to a screeching alarm and went about the motions of putting on a suit for the first time in a year.
Slightly alarmed at my top shirt button’s hesitance to enclose my neck, I loosened my tie and opted for the slightly dishevelled image over neat, professional ‘n’ blue in the face.
‘Hi, James!’ the agency’s irritating male receptionist chirped at me as I enter the building.
‘My name’s not James,’ I mumbled under my breath. ‘I’m the breakfast temp today,’ I continued.
‘The breakfast temp?’ he pouted, amused. ‘You can join the others in the breakfast temp waiting room around the corner,’ he directed. Frowning, I made my way around the maze-like passages of the organisation. I was under the assumption I’d be the only breakfast temp. Behind me, I heard another young lady enter and mutter something about breakfast temping. This was swiftly followed by a shrieked ‘AND MY NAME’S NOT FUCKING KAREN!’
As I appeared in the doorway to the breakfast temp room, a gathering of ten young despair-stricken people with sunken eyes glanced sullenly up from bowls of cereal and morning newspapers. Suddenly, I worried that I’d interrupted some sort of important, private meeting; but an elderly lady knowingly placed her hand on my shoulder.
‘Welcome,’ she nodded warmly at me, as if I’d joined some sort of substance abuse help group meeting. The lady whose name was not Karen flounced in behind me and sunk herself into a chair, muttering under her breath. She seemed to stand out from the other depressed folk with an energetic quality nobody else had. As she rifled through her handbag and realised she had misplaced a cosmetic item of some sort, she swore again. I decided that I liked the woman whose name is not Karen simply because she swore a lot.
Noticing that the breakfast catering extravaganza was not quite what I expected, I shrugged and made my way over to the toaster and kettle which had been provided for our breakfast. The bread seemed to be frozen, but a woman sitting at a table nearby reassured me she’d set the toaster to cook it perfectly. Nodding at her, I inserted the bread into the industrial bread toaster and waited sullenly. Around me, people glanced at their watches with despair. Every minute that passed signified a smaller chance that they’d be placed on temp assignments for the day.
After black smoke began hissing from the toaster, I realised that the woman hadn’t set it as accurately as she claimed. As I angrily glared at her, she pretended to not notice my stormy face and instead pored over the horse racing section of the Daily Telegraph. Two charred pieces of dirty charcoal ejected themselves with force and hung limply from the toaster. No longer carrying a hunger for breakfast, I tossed them in the bin.
Seating myself next to the woman who was not named Karen, I introduced myself. There didn’t seem much else to do.
‘Hi, I’m Carly,’ the girl smiled brightly at me. ‘First time, huh?’ she knowingly nodded as she turned back to her copy of Woman’s Day.
‘Well, yeah,’ I shrugged. ‘This is a little different than I expected.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ she assured me. ‘Just don’t go near the food or their coffee. There’s a Starbucks downstairs, you should get a coffee from there if you come here in the morning,’ she advised, pointing to her cup of steaming coffee.
‘Anything else I need to know?’ I asked.
‘Hmm,’ she stroked her chin theatrically. ‘Quit temping,’ she finally decided.
‘Is it that bad?’ I asked. ‘I mean, temping isn’t something I want to do all the time, but…’
‘Temping is bad,’ she stabbed at her Woman’s Day. ‘Breakfast temping is FUCKED,’ she said loudly. Other heads in the room, obviously on their first day as well, strain their heads in concern.
She turned back to me and continued a little more quietly, one finger winding its way through her mass of curly hair. ‘Just bear in mind only one out of the ten people here will probably get work this morning, and be prepared to be treated like an infant from the staff here. They’ll force you to stay until 11am - and there’s never any work that comes in after 9.30am. Of course, you can also look forward to being treated like an idiot at any assignment you’re placed on, because you’re’ - she waggled her fingers in the style of inverted commas - ‘”just the temp”. And I hope you don’t have a career in mind, because answering the phone and data entry are as complicated as it gets,’ she continued.
Staring at her for a moment, I was in awe by the goddess of temping seated next to me. ‘I like you, Carly,’ I declared. ‘I will call you Temping Carly.’
‘Nice,’ she smiled at me. ‘So you’re stuck in here by force as well?’
‘Yeah,’ I shrugged. ‘I want to do something in the entertainment industry, so I’m doing this for the time being.’
‘I’m a Java programmer,’ the weedy young man seated next to us hopefully raised his quivering voice.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Temping Carly snapped at him. ‘Every second bloody person here is a Java programmer.’
‘There’s more people here than I expected,’ I admit to Temping Carly. ‘I didn’t think it’d be a problem finding work, but I guess there’s nothing guaranteed,’ I continued as two women in their mid-thirties entered the room with noses in the air, inspecting us all with visible disgust.
‘Some first timers here, I see,’ one of the women sneered.
‘These two women are horrible,’ Temping Carly nudged me. ‘They’re quite friendly on a personal level with some of the staff here, and tend to get most of the work.’
‘Well, you guys just make yourself at home,’ one of the women began in a rude authoritarian tone. ‘I’m just going to go and have a chat with some of the staff,’ and she swept herself out of the room. The rapidly diminishing feeling of group hope in the room had been squashed under the thumb of a voluptuous, jiggling over-tanned switch bitch.
‘Ignore her,’ Temping Carly smiled at me, slapping my leg playfully.
‘Why do you come here if you hate it so much?’ I wondered out loud.
‘Same boat as you really,’ she explained. ‘I’m looking for a job in insurance - that’s what I’m an expert at. Until then, it’s breakfast temping for me.’
‘They’re trying to get me to take an insurance job,’ I whinged.
One of the two self-proclaimed expert temping older women commenced announcing loudly to the room that her dermatitis was particularly inflamed this morning. ‘I just don’t know what to do about it!’ she exclaimed, exposing the rash beneath her panty hose for all to see. I grimaced and turned to Temping Carly for help.
‘Those two just try to make everyone else feel inferior,’ she shrugged. This was the first time I’d seen a volatile skin disease used as a weapon of power, but this breakfast temping scene was all new to me.
Finally, a staff member of the agency appeared in the doorway, closely followed by the other Expert Temp who hovered around eagerly behind her.
‘Hi everyone, we’re all on the phones trying to get work for you this morning,’ she said. I noticed Temping Carly was able to mouth exactly what the woman was saying - obviously this was a daily speech. ‘Can you tell me all what you’re interested in doing?’
Each person in the room dutifully murmured things like ‘receptionist’ and ‘admin work’. Wanting to make myself stand out somewhat, I proclaimed ‘PERSONAL ASSISTANT!’ loudly. Really, when I gave it some thought, that’s what I’d much prefer to do if forced to undergo temping. I felt somewhat more advanced in office skills and experience to regress to filing paperwork.
Then the other people in the room began booming that they wanted personal assistant work, too. They were all fully qualified, they claimed. Yet I knew they weren’t! I was fuming that my little advancement had been stolen and group-raped. Now I was simply as faceless as everyone else. The Expert Temp grinning broadly behind the staff member sensed this, and leered at me. I scowled back and wished I still had the burnt piece of toast nearby to throw at her head.
The staff member retreated down the hall as the other temps in the room whispered anxiously amongst themselves. Temping Carly downed the dregs of her coffee and burped loudly. ‘I wanna go to the beach for a surf,’ she moaned.
Having become a little parched, I stood up to retrieve myself a glass of orange juice from the table opposite me. Suddenly, a one-man whirlwind of activity whistled into the room, swiftly and neatly collected both the orange juice and bowl of sugar in front of me, then whisked them both up the hall. ‘We’re out of sugar,’ he called out as he scooted away.
‘They always run out of sugar,’ the dermatitis woman groaned pantomime-style, as if this was a wacky shenanigan that she assumed everyone anticipated daily. Panicking, the other temps began wondering what to do for a drink now that OJ and coffee were out of the question. I took it as a personal omen that my employment prospects and career future were shortly to be whisked away from me too.
‘So where are you from?’ I asked Temping Carly, plunking myself down into my seat resignatedly.
‘I live in Manly,’ she pointed to the wall opposite us. ‘I’ve just been in London for a year, though, did a lot of interesting work over there.’ She went on to regale me with her adventures in London’s Australian Quarter and the tens of men she conquered with her sexual prowess. ‘I’m mostly interested in writing, though,’ she assured me. ‘I just surf, bum about, and write.’
‘Hey, I like writing too,’ I raised my eyebrows.
‘You should write a memoir,’ she suggested. ‘I’m trying that. It’s fun.’
‘Isn’t there the whole… living-your-life thing to be conquered before you turn your hand to that?’ I pondered.
‘Oh, well… you know,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ve just created a fictional life for myself in advance. Maybe you could write a one page memoir as a starter and see how you go.’
‘A one page memoir,’ I stroked my goatee. ‘I quite like that. Anyway, I’ve always maintained that I’ll be the victim of breast cancer at age 35, even though I have no plans or interest whatsoever in a sex change. I’ve just got man titties.’
‘You should write it and bring it with you when you’re here next,’ her husky voice commanded. ‘I might be here, you can show it to me and I’ll have something to read instead of the blank, misguided faces of the no-brainer staff who work here.’
‘Will do,’ I assured her.
‘AHHHHHH! BRAD PITT!’ screamed the two Expert Temps, squabbling over a ratty, months-old edition of NW magazine. The woman with dermatitis yipped like a poodle until ownership of the magazine was transferred to her. Collectively, the rest of the room sighed.
With nothing to do, the staff arse-licker Expert Temp turned her attention to Carly and attempted to demoralise her. ‘So, you’ve got a nice tan,’ she hissed cantankerously.
‘Thanks,’ Temping Carly replied. ‘I’ve just been to Cairns.’
‘Is that so,’ Expert Temp replied as if interrogating a sweaty, red-eyed youth over their substance abuse habits. ‘Because your skin looks a little… orange to me.’
Annoyed that she’d personally attacked my new friend, I retorted without a pause. ‘Your hair’s quite orange too. Is that marmalade in there, or some other breakfast condiment?’ Expert Temp flicked her hair dramatically and floated off to the other side of the room.
‘Thanks,’ Temping Carly nodded at me. ‘Reasons like that I don’t like coming in here. And I’m in the mood to leave for a day at the beach. Might go now. Seeya!’
I waved goodbye, but Temping Carly was swiftly intercepted by a voluptuous Scottish member of staff.
‘Och aye the noo!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ye cannae leave yit, wir all on the foons gittin work for ye. Give us fifteen more minutes,’ she ordered and marched Temping Carly back to her chair. She pouted and exhaled loudly.
‘Do you see what I mean?’ she pounded her fist against her chair. ‘This happens until 11am, and there won’t be any more jobs that come in after half an hour’s time.’
The Temping Expert with marmalade hair reprised her smirk, which was responded to by a swift movement by one of Temping Carly’s fingers.
‘So how was your weekend?’ a man with a loud tie began next to me.
‘Um, a good laugh, I guess,’ I replied.
‘How important is laughing to you?’ he continued. This seemed like a bit of a strange question to be asking someone you’d just met.
‘Er… very important?’ I warily said. ‘It’s fun.’
‘And what else, in your eyes, constitutes fun?’ the man continued his interrogation.
‘I dunno,’ I responded. ‘Being with friends. Being relaxed.’
‘So what other times do you feel relaxed?’
‘Um… at the pub?’
‘So if I could design the ideal pub, what would it look like?’
I scratched my head, not really putting much consideration into my response. ‘I dunno, have VB on tap, a jukebox filled with industrial music and be near a train station so I could get home.’
‘And if I showed you a pub that satisfied all those conditions, would you buy it?’
I frowned. ‘You work in telesales, right?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ the man bellowed loudly and slapped me violently on the back. I turned to Carly with pleading eyes.
I’m sure she was about to murmur some encouraging words to me, but the dermatitis woman piped up again loudly from the corner of the room. ‘What the hell is going on with Sussan’s advertising campaign managers?’ she shrieked, waving her magazine about as if fending off airborne diseases. ‘Their new slogan is “What a wonderful woman”. How the FUCK did they get from “This goes with that” to “What a wonderful woman”?’ she demanded.
The other Temping Expert, with the marmalade hair, spoke up again and began attempting to demonstrate that she was also an unequallable expert in the field of advertising and marketing.
‘The terrible thing is, that woman will always get the first job because she sucks up to the staff so much,’ Temping Carly explained as the Scottish woman returned as if on queue.
‘Who has photocopying experience?’ she asked the group. I goggled in incredulousness, Temping Carly merely rolled her eyes, having seen it all before.
‘I DO,’ roared the marmalade hair woman above the rest of the group, and was promptly marched out with directions to the company she’d been assigned to. She winked at us all on her departure with wanly disguised contempt.
‘Can I go yet?’ Temping Carly asked another passing staff member, tapping her watch for emphasis.
‘No,’ was the curt reply. ‘Stay for thirty more minutes.’ Temping Carly stuck her tongue out at the departing man and crossed her legs.
‘I’m going to vote for Natasha Stott Despoja in the upcoming election,’ the Java programmer announced unprompted. Everyone stared at him blankly.
‘Well, she’s… you know, I liked her when she was on Good News Week and all that,’ he quietly spoke to the floor.
‘Look, I’m going to try and nick out, commando style,’ Temping Carly whispered to me. ‘I’ll see you here next time.’
‘Okay,’ I grinned at her, giving her the thumbs up for luck. Turning my head towards the food table, I noticed one of the girls was intently studying the ingredients of the bread which had been provided for us.
‘Bored, eh?’ I smiled at her.
‘No, no,’ she replied stone-faced. ‘I’m ingredient to nuts, I have to check there’s no traces of nuts in this. You’d be surprised how much stuff contains traces of nuts.’
‘I’m sure I would,’ I assured her.
‘Chocolate is the big problem. There’s only a couple of kinds of chocolate I can eat,’ she explained.
In Temping Carly’s absence, I decided to press further. ‘So what are they?’
‘Mint Aero bars, and the family sized Caramel Dove chocolate block.’
‘Is that… exclusively family size?’ I wondered.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘For some reason, only the family size block doesn’t contain traces of nuts. So I usually eat those quite a bit,’ she said before pulling an enormous block of said chocolate from her handbag. She ripped the wrapper off ferociously with her teeth and consumed it like a rabid animal.
Somewhat worried at this sudden display of accelerated confectionery consumption, I returned to my chair. Without warning, a furious stormy-faced Temping Carly was marched back into the room by yet another staff member like an escaped convicted being returned to their cell.
‘Just fifteen more minutes!’ the staff member scolded. Temping Carly imitated her under her breath. Pretending to ignore her, the staff woman made an announcement to the group. ‘Who has… filing experience?’ she screeched enthusiastically, as if we’re studio audience members on The Price is Right.
Most people in the room flailed their arms wildly around in the air and one selected girl was taken away. I turned to Temping Carly again.
‘This is fucking ridiculous,’ I complained to her. ‘I’m not going to get any relevant experience here. I’m sure I can do better just by going and applying for some more full time jobs.’
‘You can,’ she assured me.
‘Look, let’s just nick off, I don’t care what they say,’ I prompted. Temping Carly didn’t need any convincing and we stood to leave, when - surprise, surprise - one of the staff members intercepted us at the doorway.
‘Just twenty more minutes,’ she requested, then marched off.
‘I can’t believe this!’ I exploded to the rest of the room. It was as if they’d installed hidden closed-circuit cameras. ‘Is anyone else not enjoying this?!’ I demanded.
The rest of the group agreed through murmurs that weren’t necessarily on the seat of their pants with excitement. Through a congealed mouthful of caramel mess, the nut-intolerant girl talked in a mucky gurgle that she didn’t like breakfast temping at all.
‘I mean really, sure this is nice to get some stuff in on the side, but fucking hell, what’s money? You should only work because you enjoy what you’re doing. What good is money? To buy nice shiny things?’ I ranted, surprising myself.
Temping Carly nodded. ‘When I was young I had dreams. I know that’s corny and shitty but that’s what happens. Then you get older and the dreams shrink, and they just shrink with age…’
‘They also shrink with each new model of photocopier that comes out,’ I explained, hoping the group would understand in this kind of language. Eagerly, they nodded.
‘Really, what do you guys want?’ Temping Carly demanded. ‘A new car? A new house? A new goddamn stereo system? And what when you’re older, what do you think elderly people dream about? A sunny fucking day?!’
‘A nice cup of tea with the exact right bit of milk in it, maybe,’ I offered.
‘I don’t like what I’m heading towards,’ Temping Carly said. ‘A braindead idiot who does mindless admin work and looks forward to what’s good on telly after the news? Who the hell wants that?!’
I wondered what tangent we were on now. I quite enjoyed being part of a small uprising, but then I wasn’t too sure what she was talking about.
‘I want to do something fucking drastic, not sit around in this stupid room for hours on end waiting for a fucking stupid JOB every day!’ she screamed.
Sensing that someone was trying to leave early again, a staff member popped their head in the door. ‘Twenty more min-’ he began.
‘FUCK OFF!’ Temping Carly screamed. ‘I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING TWENTY MORE FUCKING MINUTES! Guys? Are we not adults here? Are we not able to make decisions for ourselves?’ she demanded, waving her arms at the doorway.
Worried about what Temping Carly would do to us if we disagreed, we all gratefully walked through the door past her open arms.
‘You take your twenty minutes and shove it up your ARSE!’ she screamed at the staff member. Her words echoed in my ears as I slowly paced down the corridor towards the elevator. I liked what she was saying… but I still didn’t have a full time job.
