Temping (at the end of the day I'm another glass drunker)

There are benefits to the world of paid anonymity. Lack of responsibility, ease of getting to auditions etc etc. However, one night recently elbowed it's way to the top, just nudging aside 'time to look for jobs.'

I had been working for a large, multinational company and it was not fun. It was one of those companies where the same people remained for too many years and felt an ownership of it and everything that passed through it. Coupled with a severe lack of organisational skills and the result was a temp who was given no instruction on the handling of a major event and yet landed with the blame for everything that went wrong.

I had been booked for a two week assignment, the second of which included helping at a large, five-star function. Having spent the day being shouted at when various international bosses swiped the meeting rooms of those who had booked them, I was ready to go home, crack open a bottle of red and argue with the television. Instead, I peeled my smile off the floor, draped myself in a cocktail dress and left the office with one of the secretaries, to attend the function at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge.

Usually at one of these functions I am behind a desk handing out name badges or finding peoples coats. In this instance I was given an area to man, with several hundred name badges to find and distribute. Not a problem and easy enough I thought to myself. That was until I realised that there were simply too many (very bossy) cooks spoiling the corporate broth. The woman to my left used her sizable rear to gain access to all my badges and when I stepped back to allow her and her rear through, my boss asked me why I wasn't manning my post. After an hour most of the guests had arrived and were in the ballroom helping themselves to oysters. An ice sculpture of Neptune with two large, ice clam-shells adorned tables serving shellfish, while the lovely staff circle with incredible bites. I know all this because after barely an hour I was sent into the ballroom to join in.

Wonder of great wonders. I chatted to my new South African friend and her lovely husband whilst drinking vintage champagne from a never-empty flute and eating from the steady flow of trays that passed me. I made a couple of trips back to badge-land but was dismissed on each occassion. After four hours, repleat and happy I was put in a taxi home complete with an unopened magnum of Ruinart. The cost of the cab ride and champagne alone were more than my days wages, and made me realise that maybe after all, I had been appreciated.

ThatGirlWhoWracts on temping

'So you're an actor! Why are you here?'

'Resting' - can't you tell?

There is nothing remotely restful about the world of temping. Not if you want to make any money anyway. And I don't mean so you're rolling around in wads of cash either. I phone my agencies most days when I'm 'resting' and harrass them for work. Mostly, I get it. But it's a full time occupation nonetheless.

I hear a lot about these temps who show up late, talk on their phones and don't do anything. How do they get work? I have always been a bit of a goody two shoes: undeniably worried about doing a good job at any given activity. Unassahamedly proud when, in the stationary stock room, I've managed to catagorise all the paperclips by size.

There are various sub-catagories of temping that no one knows about:
1) I've been booked for the next week and I'm safe. Watch out Marks and Spencer, I'm coming to get your 5-thong multi-pack.
2) I haven't been booked in for work, so I need to be on call, up and ready to go bright and early. I gave up 'waking to sound of my phone' long ago, discovering that it only ever resulted in me turning up late, forgetting my phone, wallet or both, or running the risk that my first words of the day would be 'furmf ugh mugf' on answering the call.
3) I have been booked in for part of the week but it's not enough to pay my rent and I'm supposed to go out for drinks one evening. I've taken to remembering to take lunch and 'boredom snacks' and even dinner too if I'm due to meet friends after work. Call me Ebanezer and put me in a Dicken's novel.

Couple that with writing (currently a show, occasionally moderately entertaining blog, lyrics for several songs and a new play), fitting in the ever-illusive audition and trying to set up my 'real' part time work, temping is far from restful.

So, 'Yes, I'm an actor... On the stage mostly... I don't know, have you been to Coventry?.. No, I don't know what I'm doing next.... Is that a full fat or skim half-caff latte?

9

Unlike another

He’s a man unlike another.

There is a strength beneath confusion,

A will outweighed by fear. 

He longs for things he does not know,

And hides when you get close. 

Sometimes you hear the truth, 

Before it buries itself in doubt.

At times there is sincerity

That knocks you off your feet.

But I wonder when he calls

If it’s my voice that he hears,

Or a sound from a memory

That he isn’t sure is his. 

He’s a friend you see;

Someone I’ll always think of.

And one day I hope he hears

The voices that he calls.

© ThatGirlWhoWracts

8

Saturday’s song

You are quiet grace.

You hide determination.

You are what everyone wants

And something of your own creation.

A thousand eyes press into your face,

Five hundred needs are met.

And even when the stares wear thin,

Your smile lingers yet.

Lucky us who call you friend,

And he who loves you so.

Lucky them with the family tag

And the careers you help to grow.

So keep your quiet grace.

Don't sway your determination.

You are all you could ever want.

A force of pure creation. 

© ThatGirlWhoWracts 2011

7

Man on the train

Man on the train, 

Get up, we’re here.

Should I try to wake you 

And risk your morning blear,

Or let you go back all the way 

To leafy Bedfordshire?

© ThatGirlWhoWracts 2011

6

Navel-gazing

There is an impulse to be navel-bound.

I could run away with the flow of my tears,

But wouldn’t that make me a girly cliche?

Wouldn’t it just be more annoying than sad?

So I’ll gather my weeping, stare ahead not down:

Fold my mouth into a smile, avoid the glare from below.

There isn’t a song that tells how I feel,

So I’ll pull down my shirt and avoid the cliche.

© ThatGirlWhoWracts 2011

5

Today

Today,

I might stand on the wrong side of the escalator.

I might stop to tie my shoe lace on the stairs.

Today,

I might boil an egg ‘til the water is dry,

Or leave the fridge door open while I think.

Today,

It’s the day that I may walk against the flow,

Or when I’ll stand out, coatless in the rain.

Today,

Is when all of these ‘mights’ may be,

Or when I’ll think, but smile it all away.

© ThatGirlWhoWracts

September 2011