workingfortheman.com

It was crowded at the temp agency - there were seven or eight others besides me on standby, and although I wasn't late, I was the last to arrive.

Two of the temps seemed to know each other and gossiped about mutual friends while they filed time sheets, while a few others jumped in with comments from time to time. I was silent, not in the mood to chat.

"Would anyone else like to help me with some filing while they're waiting?" The receptionist's glance swept the room. I didn't feel like being a helping hand, so I kept busy by rooting through my bag. I felt moderately bad until I realized I wasn't the only one not helping out. Then I just didn't care. I was sick of being a part of this world contained in a waiting room the size of half a subway car, where nothing ever really happened. Sitting standby was reminding me more and more of high school detention, except I was being paid eight dollars an hour to do it. I felt like climbing the walls. And then I heard my name.

They had a job for me at a place called something and something Capital. What that could possibly be, I had no idea. I walked from the temp office into the drizzle and caught the N train at Times Square. I found the building, rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, walked to the end of the hall and saw a door with ... & ... CAPITAL - A FULL REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY spelled out on the frosted glass. I turned the knob and went in.

The reception desk was front and center, with another desk off to the side. The room was decorated in muted tones, with two chairs and the requisite pile of magazines arranged on a small table. A framed print of a glossy bagel hung on the wall, with "New York, New York" written under it in slanted, neon-style writing. My umbrella dripped onto the carpet at my feet.

"Hello?" I called.

"Yeah?" The response came from somewhere in the back. I craned my neck past the waiting area and saw a corridor, then a rather tall middle-aged guy with light hair and glasses walking out of one of the offices.

"Hi, I'm the temp."

"What's your name?"

"Ellen."

"Hi, Ellen. I'm T." He extended a hand. "Thanks for coming."

"Oh, yeah, sure."

"I'm the only one here so far." He seemed to be thinking out loud, not really addressing the statement to me. "Did you figure out the phones yet?"

"What? No, I..."

"Just got here? I know, Ellen, I know. I'm only joking with you. HA!"

T. leaned back slightly and closed his eyes, his hands on his stomach. I looked on in mild confusion. He recomposed himself and strolled over to the desk.

"The closet is over there. Help yourself," T. said, pointing to the far corner. I walked over, my umbrella dripping a trail behind me. I hung up my things and went to the desk.

"There's three of us - me, J., and L. Here's my line, J.'s, and L.'s. But L., she won't be in until later."

"Is there any voice mail?" I asked.

"No, no voice mail. You can take messages in this." He pointed to a while-you-were-out notebook. "Okay?"

I slid the chair out from under the desk. "Okay."

"I'll be in the back." T. said. "I'll see you later."

I sat down and looked around. There were no windows in the front office, and against an entire wall, the one opposite the "New York, New York" print, were blue metal filing cabinets, from floor to almost the ceiling. I wondered what exactly a "full real estate development company" did, and decided it was probably in the game of financing property deals. Typical to being the temp, I didn't even have to know the exact nature of where I was or for whom I was there. As long as I was capable of answering a telephone, I could be a cog in the system of x, y or z. Business all across America, and for that matter, the world, is conducted on a daily basis with the assistance of people who don't even know why they're there, and I wondered how many people realized that. Surely all the temps in the world realized it.

I thought about an advertisement I'd seen in the yellow pages for another agency which had read: "Join the largest work force there is - temporary employees." That had been a surprise. Plenty of people I knew had been temps at one time or another, but the largest work force there is? Lots of people worked as permanent temps, too, having one assignment for months on end, and I thought about how ridiculous it was that as long as someone was employed long-term, they were earning a temp rate as opposed to what the permanent employees earned, and also that a portion of their salary should go to the temp agency. Not to mention they didn't receive any health benefits or sick days. So the largest work force there is serves as a further moneymaker for businesses, corporations and conglomerates. I shook my head and waited around for the phone to ring.

**********

In the next half-hour I answered the phone only a few times, and presently, I met J. He was a brusque, hurried character in tweed, who stormed in through the door and strode past me, then stopped short and turned on a heel.

"Hello." He regarded me with a doubtful expression.

"Hi. I'm Ellen. I'm filling in today for, uh..."

"C." He answered quickly.

"Yes! C."

"So you're a temp."

"Indeed," I confirmed.

"J." He said, extending a hand. "I'll be in the back."

I wasn't quite sure how to go about getting the messages to T. and J. while they were already on the phone. I didn't know if I should be telling them about who was holding, or take a message and wait until they came back through my way, or what. I settled on scratching down messages and hand-delivering them at intervals, when I had gathered together five or six at a time. It seemed as if both of them were constantly on long phone calls - as I dipped in and out of the back office, I heard enough to know they were not up to financing property deals. Apparently J. owned a restaurant or something, because I heard him screaming into the telephone:

"No! NO, dammit! He is a FOOL! I TOLD him about the appetizers, about how they should be - what? NO! No, no, no, no. All wrong. Do me a favor - tell him again, tell him for me - do it like it says on the menu and don't call until it's done." I heard the phone slammed down. "IDIOT!"

"Hold on - what, J.?" I heard T. lend a sympathetic ear to J.

"Oh - never mind. He is an IDIOT!"

I walked into their office and doled out the messages, then back to my desk. I sat flipping through a copy of Time Out New York, and stopped on an article about living cheaply in the city. I was reading about saving money on toilet paper by squashing the roll before placing it on the holder- the idea seemed to be that it would rotate slower, thus preventing waste.

**********

"Ah, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing - that fuckin' bitch." I couldn't tell if it was J. or T., but suspected from the earlier outburst that it was J. Then I heard T. agree with the assessment:

"She is a bitch. I don't know why the fuck she even thinks she can get this by on us."

"Stupid. Just stupid."

I wondered what J. and T. did when they left the office. I wondered if they were betting men, or into cars. I was sure I could peg them for cigar smokers. Yeah, I could picture the two of them - one leg crossed over a knee, leaning far back in plush chairs in a dark lounge, with some kind of brandy or cognac swirling in a snifter, waving cigars - "Ha, ha, that dumb bitch!" I bet they didn't wonder at all what I would do when I left.

The door swung open, and I looked up. I heard a struggling sound, and saw flashes of arm. Presently a tall, slender woman who appeared to be a few years older than me entered.

"Hi. I'm L." She said, smiling. I could tell instantly that she was one of those scattered, hapless types. One strap of her bag was on her shoulder, the other hung on her arm, damp and limp.

"Hey. I'm Ellen."

"This-- damn umbrella. I couldn't get it to close." She looked down at it. It was closed.

"It looks like you managed." I noted.

"Yeah - finally. Are J. and T. here?"

"Yes. Back there." I waved my arm towards the offices.

"All right." Saying that seemed to focus her, for the moment. She glanced around the room, as if taking stock. "All right." She hung up her things in the closet and sat down at the desk in the far corner, next to the copier. I looked on in mild interest. I wondered if I would get a clue into the goings on of ... & ..., seeing that she would be working in the same room. L. picked up the phone and dialed with a pencil, staring intently at the keypad. When she finished, I looked away, back to the magazine, which I held up slightly, so as to be able to observe without shifting my gaze too obviously. "Hi. D.? It's me. How is he? Uh huh...uh huh…oh, no. You're kidding. That's awful... Oh, no. Well - I suppose I can get down there later... Yeah, well, I just got here. Oh, I can't believe this." She sat back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling. "Well, call Mom, would you? Okay. I'll call later. Bye."

She hung up and continued her ceiling vigil. Obviously something serious had happened, but I didn't ask what. I figured if I had a similar phone conversation, involving what seemed to be the illness or accident of a family member, I would receive the pryings of the temp with a lukewarm reaction at best.

"Ah! Ha HA!" boomed forth from the back. I went back to the magazine. A minute later J. and T. came through the front office. "Okay, we're out for about a half-hour." T. informed us. "Take messages." he said to me, and smiled.

I went back to the article on budget living and discovered that funeral parlors apparently gave away the used flowers if one approached and asked very nicely. The telephone rang and L. lunged for it. "I'll get it - Hello, ... & ... Capital? Yes, it's me... Is he okay or what?... Diabetes? Oh, no. Oh, no. Well, call me back. I must speak to Dad." She hung up. "I'm going to smoke a cigarette while they're gone." she announced, walking over to the door and opening it for ventilation. She pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from her jacket pocket and lit one, inhaling deeply. I didn't blame her - if my dad was a hospitalized diabetic, I'd want a cigarette, too. In fact, I did anyway, and I figured if I was in on this enough to see her smoking, I could be in on it enough to smoke one myself. But I was the temp. But so what - what was she going to say, with a cigarette dangling from her fingers?

"Good idea." I agreed, and walked over to the closet. "I think I'll have one, too."

"Well, do it quick, okay? They'll be back soon." L. said, in a frosty tone.

"Yeah." I fashioned an ashtray from my now-empty pack of cigarettes by ripping out the front panel and splaying the foil inside.

L. sighed. "This is awful." She began. I sensed I would be hearing the whole story about her sick father. She seemed to be waiting for the go-ahead on my part.

"What is?" I asked after a drag on my cigarette.

"V.'s been very sick, and now they tell me he's got diabetes. I don't know what to do - I'm going to have to go meet my sister at the vet on my lunch hour."

Vet? Ahhh, So V. is her pet. I was able to put that one together rather quickly, despite L's way of skipping over certain aspects of the story. That was at least better than her father, but still, she looked devastated. Maybe if I pointed out what I had thought, she would be at least a little comforted by the idea that it wasn't that. "Oh. I thought you were talking about your father. I thought your father was the one who was sick."

"Huh? No - V." She answered absently, ashing her cigarette repeatedly, unnecessarily.

"What did the vet say?"

"Oh, he'll have to be getting insulin. He'll get better, I think. I just..." L. stood up suddenly. "I have to go." She said, almost surprised, as if it were a great truth she had just discovered. "I'm going to go, okay?" she looked at me. "I have to."

"Uh, okay." I answered, taken aback slightly.

"You'll be all right here by yourself." She assured me, pawing through her bag. "Here. I'll leave you my cell phone number. Call me if you have any questions." She scrawled down a number in a quick, childish hand and shoved it across the desk. "I'll call in a while." She said on her way out, and the door slammed shut.

I sat at the desk and looked around. Not much seemed to happen at ... & ... Capital, and I hoped it would stay that way. It was twenty after noon, and I was going to be there until five.

Ten minutes later, the door banged open and in came a woman, limping slowly with the aid of a cane and wearing a lilac sweat suit. She looked to be about fifty, and wore an expression somewhere between anger and confusion. "You're not C."

"No. I'm just here for the day."

"Where's C? Where is she?"

"Not feeling well."

"Where's J.?"

"Out with T."

"Where are they?" She leaned heavily on her cane and glowered at me.

"They didn't say where they were going. I expect them back soon, though."

"Yeah." The woman snorted. "We were supposed to have a meeting at one."

I looked at the clock. "Well, it's only -"

"I know! They have a half-hour. A half hour!" To my incredulity, she actually shook her cane in my direction before turning and with some difficulty, getting out the door. I stared after her, and could hear her muttering in the hallway. I wondered who she could be in the game of real estate development.

To pass some time, I decided to make a few phone calls. I dialed Liz, but she was out at lunch. I was about to call Carrie when I remembered she was at school today, student teaching. I found Joe's number in my address book and had picked up the receiver when I heard the unmistakable hubbub of J. and T. coming down the hall, so I hung up quickly and began to arrange the pens in the coffee mug.

"Well, I think it went fuckin' great!" T. was exclaiming as they entered. "Hi." He said to me. I smiled, nodded, and waited. J. looked over at L.'s vacated desk and stopped.

"Where the hell is L? It's not time for her lunch."

"Well - she left."

"What do you mean, she left? Why?" he wanted to know.

"It seems she had to get to the veterinarian. An emergency situation." I kept my tone even, explaining and enunciating.

"Ahh...V." J. turned and walked to the back, waving his arms in a gesture of dismissal.

"Yeah - V." I confirmed.

"Well, what is this? She left you here alone?" T. was shocked.

I nodded. "It was okay - nothing crazy happened." Then I remembered: "Oh - a lady with a cane dropped in to... She said she had a meeting with you today."

"Shit! P.!" called J. from the back. Both T. and I glanced in the direction of his voice.

"P.? It was P.?" demanded T.

"She didn't leave a name. But she did say you were supposed to get together at one o'clock." How many ladies with canes could they possibly know in this business? With scheduled meetings?

"Oh - well that's just great!" T. yelled. He looked at his watch, and without another word, practically ran to the back.

I sat there, contemplating making that call to Joe. I would have loved to narrate the scene I was in the midst of to someone. I was dialing his number when J. came out of his office with his attache case.

"Okay, look - why don't we call it a day? You can go home early."

"What?"

"Yeah - isn't there some kind of form I need to fill out for you? I'll put down that you were here until five, though, because... You had to be here by yourself for a while."

"Are you sure?" I couldn't believe it. This was excellent. I'll bet they were skipping out on P. and wanted to make a quick getaway.

"Yes." J. answered hurriedly. I held out the time sheet and he snatched it away from me, signing his name in all capitals and shoving it back. "T.!" he called over his shoulder.

"Thank you." I said, gathering up my belongings.

"Yeah." He answered. "T.! Let's go!"

"Bye." I said, just to see if he could be distracted from his frenzy. He couldn't. I walked out, and the door to ... & ... Capital slammed shut behind me.

Ellen Moynihan lives and works in Manhattan, but is mercifully no longer employed as a temp. Now she bartends at a rock dive in Hell's Kitchen and is editing her first novel. Laugh at how she used to make a living -- She does at thewalkingpapers.blogspot.com.

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