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?