Finally hired... ?

Recently, I finally got to go to a temporary agency to sign myself up for some temporary jobs to do. Quite a bit of paper work to do, with a lot of the same questions being asked repeatedly. But all in the hopes of finding and getting into some decent jobs, even if it's for some experience, I went ahead and signed up for any jobs for any hours, even with physical labor jobs. I'm not very picky, and seeing how hard it's been finding a job, anything would be good at this point.

Finally though, I get a call and was asked whether if I could do a job that's at 4:30 in the morning, loading up trucks. Although it was a short notice, given that the job was for the next morning of when they called, I had to take the opportunity to work somewhere. Of course, I was tired, but given my sleeping disorder, I probably wasn't going to get any decent sleep anyway.

Even though it would have been nice had I been able to get some sleep before work, I didn't. By the time I'd fall asleep, it'd be time to leave for work for me anyway, since it usually takes me over an hour of lying around in bed to get comfortable and fall asleep. So I left for work at 3:30 AM, since this was the first time going to this place. I didn't know what the place looks like and what not, so it's generally a good idea to go earlier anyway. It was about 15 miles away, which... is borderline okay for a job... maybe... I'm not really sure. I wasn't even told how many hours I'd be working at this place, and loading up trucks is probably minimum wage too. With how much gas prices are these days, I question whether if whatever I make at the place would pay for the gas to drive there and back. It's kind of ridiculous that there's never any jobs near this area at all. Everything is several miles away here in Florida. I'm so much used to having lots of businesses near where I live in northern New Jersey. I barely have to drive 5 miles to get to a store or get food.

By the time I arrived at the warehouse, it was 4:10. I was definitely early, and there were a couple of people standing at the entrance, waiting for work to start. I decided I'll try to get some last minute rest before I get out of the car and wait for 4:30.

4:30 comes and goes, and we were still standing in front of the door, waiting for the doors to open. It turns out that doors don't even open until 5:00 AM. What the hell? Why was I told to be there at 4:30? For the sake of being early? I already know to arrive early at a job, thank you very much, but even then, 30 minutes early is an awfully long time of expecting me to do nothing while waiting. I may not have a job, but I have much better things to be spending my time on, like much needed sleep that's extremely precious for someone who is as sleep deprived as I am, not because of the sudden morning work hours, but because of sleeping disabilities. I suppose I should have asked the temp agency more questions when they called me in to work for this place. Regardless, I'm being treated pretty poorly if you were to ask me, that they don't trust me to arrive on time, and that my time isn't as important or something. I cannot even imagine a time when I have absolutely nothing to do; it is constantly filled with things to do, trying to maximize the potential of the time I spend by being productive as much as possible. The disrespect for my time itself is like a slap to my face.

But that's not all. The real shit has yet to hit the fan. The doors open, people walk in, and being that it's my first time there, I wait to see what the others do to observe how the place is ran. They get in line to sign a work chart at the counter, so I do too, although at the end, since I wanted to ask questions about what I would need to know for the job, like basic rules and anything I would need to know. However, before I even get up there, the man in charge says, "Alright, that's all we need today.".

Yup, that was it. The first 15 people get the job, and the last remaining 4 that were there weren't even needed. The man took the rest of our names so that they have our attendance to report back to the temp agency, but what is the meaning of all this? Why were there too many people at the place to begin with? I get up there and ask about what he meant. The remaining 4 were just not needed, so he was just sending us back home, after all that. I told him that I was with the temp agency, and he told me that everyone there were from the temp agency. So... let me get this straight. The temp agency gets a call saying that this warehouse needs 15 workers. The temp agency then calls at least 19 of us people who signed up with them whether if we could do this work, much like how they called me, and I answered yes. Did the temp agency not get a certain confirmation of some workers or something? Did the temp agency call in extra people "just in case"? The hell do they think we are? I got to the place 50 minutes early, driving about 15 miles to do some shitty, minimum wage job, and I don't even get to do that? Do all temp agencies treat their clients like this, or was this one time just a fluke? Vicki sure didn't have any issues like this when she signed up with a different temp agency, and got a real job immediately. And here I am, the person I feel is more competent, compliant, dedicated, and hard-working than she is, and I'm being tossed around only to get rejected even by the shittiest of jobs. Is the economy really that bad? Are there really not enough jobs out there to treat us unemployed people like an actual person?

Whatever the case, the best thing I can do is keep trying and hope I find a decent job. Or an actual job that I can work at. Maybe I'll keep submitting my resume and applying at actual businesses instead of relying on temp agencies, especially if I want a more respectable, and secure job than ones where I will have similar experiences like with this one. If this happens again though, I'm sure I'll blog about it again, with the name of the companies involved as well, so that you guys won't have to go through the same crap as I have.