My Shortest Job Yet

In all of this thinking about my various jobs (which if anyone is still counting include babysitter, grocery store clerk, card store employee, hostess and server at four different restaurants, NHL hockey hospitality, substitute teacher and bank teller – and all of this is before my professional career began), I’ve remembered more and more about the items that never made my resume.

I’ve also become extremely grateful for the fact that I’m my own boss now. Who would want to put any training in to this job hopper?

Anyway, I originally thought that my shortest tenure with any employer was my infamous four-day job that I made my sister quit for me. But then I remembered yet another job, and this is one that I held for all of six hours.

Right after I graduated college, and for some reason the six-figure job offers weren’t rolling in, I signed up with a temp agency to keep up with my social and shopping habits.

The temp agency never really took a liking to me. They liked to call really early in the morning – like 9:30 a.m. early – and always wanted to talk about receptionist positions.

“One of your responsibilities would include taking in the mail. How are you with mail?” they’d say.

“I really like mail,” I said, which is true, I do love checking the mail. “But I think I’m going to pass on this one.”

The temp agency did not appreciate it when I passed on job interviews.

“Pass on this one? Again?”

“Again,” I’d say.

Now, I’m in no way knocking receptionists, I’d just made it very clear to them that I wanted to work in non-profits, and seeing as D.C. has a few thousand of those, I was hoping to at least be a receptionist at a non-profit.

“This is a really good vet’s office,” they’d say.

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “I just don’t think this is right for me.”

“Are you worried about the phones?”

“It’s not that exactly.”

“Fine then.”

Two months after graduation, I found a job on my own, but when the agency called with an actual temp job, which is what I’d been hoping for all along to fill in the gaps, I decided to take it since I still had a few weeks until I started work.

“This one’s in education,” the temp agency said, sounding a little snooty. “We thought it’d be more up your alley. You’ll need to be at Catholic University by eight in the morning.”

I agreed to be there, and told them I’d found a job, so they could take me off their call list after that. They also didn’t seem very happy that I’d found a job without them, and when I told them I was going to be the Assistant Director of Development and Marketing at a non-profit, the only response I got was a, “Well then.”

When I arrived at Catholic University, I met up with an older woman and a group of about eight to ten people ranging in age from myself to my mom in the university’s student union. The woman in charge explained that there was some sort of teacher exchange program going on, and we were going to help the teachers prepare to leave the United States. They were swapping classes for a year with teachers in other countries who would arrive later in the week.

This is what that preparation entailed: “Now, if you see here,” the woman in charge said, “we have a line made of masking tape. When the teachers arrive, you’re going to take their luggage from them at this line. Then, you’re going to take their luggage to this line.” That’s when she showed us another line of masking tape in the corner of the room.  

“You’ll also notice more masking tape on the floor so you can line up the luggage in orderly rows.”

We had a group of at least eight people to move luggage fifteen feet. I was also pretty sure that since rolling luggage had caught on, it wasn’t going to require more than one person to move bags, but for once I decided not to point out the design flaws.

Basically, I felt like I’d gotten out of bed and done my hair for work that a well-placed sign could have accomplished.

As our “job” was being explained, I made eye contact with the only male in the group, and a guy who was clearly about my age. We’ll call him Dude from here on out.

Until a certain age, I had a very distinct physical type. My roommate at the time said he could walk in to any room and pick out who I would be attracted to within about three minutes. He was right. At the time, it was also a pretty good bet that you could put me in a room with 300 young professionals, and I’d end up spending all night chatting with the bartender who lived in his van.

Dude was definitely my type. He also thought this job was absurd.

As we were waiting for teachers to arrive, I said, “You think there’s a liquor store near here?”

“I wish,” he said.

Since there’s always someone with too much gusto in any group, two women were most definitely vying to be the best at luggage rearrangement, and Dude and I decided to take that opportunity to eat lunch. At 10:30 a.m.

Just as I was fully into the fantasy that involved Dude and I telling people at cocktail parties how we met on the strangest temp job ever, he said, “I really need to make some money to move to be with my girlfriend in Chicago, but this is ridiculous.”

For the next few hours, we talked and had a good time, debated the liquor store idea some more and sat on desks watching women spend way too much time making sure the masking tape borders were respected.

I knew I had a job lined up, and $8.00/hour just wasn’t enough for this. I can handle a lot of things fairly well, but boredom isn’t one of them.

Around 2:00, when Dude and I were told we could take another “break,” he looked at me and said, “Should we make a run for it?”

As irresponsible and terrible as it may be, I wanted to, and I did. (Catholic University has a really convenient Metro stop, so escaping from their campus is really easy to do.) So, while Dude and I did not turn out to be love matches, we were complete soul mates when it came to slacking off.

Almost more amazingly, the temp agency never got on to me for running off the job site. I think someone thought I was on campus all day, doing all that I could for those teachers.

That, or they finally had the evidence to back up why they despised me so for those two months.

“I knew there was something wrong with that one from the beginning.”