ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

A while back I registered with a temporary staffing agency in the area. Having done this, I waited and waited for a job to come my way. Finally on Tuesday afternoon a nice lady called to tell me that she had a job if I could start tomorrow. It was a data entry position, and they might have me do a little scanning as well. Okay, great, I said. I’ll be there tomorrow. Wear business casual, she advised. Okay, I said. So I went out and bought some new slacks to wear, since I don’t really have any good pants, and I didn’t want to wear a dress.

Anyway, looking at this, wouldn’t you assume I’d be working in an office somewhere, punching information into a keyboard for some computer database? Wouldn’t you also assume that I’d actually be doing data entry? I made the error of assuming those things. Instead, I spent my day moving boxes around in a sweltering hellmouth warehouse. I did some scanning, but it wasn’t of documents—it was scanning barcodes on boxes for inventory purposes. The only actual data entry I did was entering a few package weights and shipping numbers into the system, and I was only really at a computer once throughout the day. I was a little concerned about all the boxes since I threw my back out a couple Christmases ago, and it was a pretty miserable experience that didn’t leave me with enough leftover Percocet to make any of it worthwhile. Just kidding about that Percocet thing. Ha, ha!

When I got home I called the staffing agency to express my disappointment in the assignment, and they were pretty shocked at what had happened. I decided to go back for a second day to make absolutely sure there was indeed a mistake, and they accepted that with the condition that I telephone them back to tell them what happened my second day. So yesterday I went back and was set to moving boxes again. I asked this guy there about it and he said essentially that the manager is kind of a jackass who decided he could get away with hiring somebody for a lower paying “clerical” position because the job technically involves the use of barcode scanners. So. Shit like this must be why workers unionize.

So after work I called the lady and told her how it had all gone, and she said that she’d done some digging around during the day and concluded that the reason the manager had requested a clerical position was that he wanted someone he could pay less than a normal warehouse employee. “What a disgusting person,” she said. That made me happy because I didn’t like him either and it’s nice when two people can share a mutual justifiable dislike for another person. Anyway, she’s going to find me a clerical position.