Army of Temps.

One good thing about having temps in the office is that I begin to notice some Temp Rivalry. It was the management's poor planning to have nine temps working on mail and applications and such, work which require computers to access the PeopleSoft system. Unfortunately, there are only seven computers available for the temps to work on, so every morning my manager walks around the office, trying to figure out which full-time staff members might not come in to work. The temps, eight of which come in at eight, have begun getting here earlier and earlier in order to snag the only open cubicle which allows some privacy from people walking by. (Every other computer sits on a table against a wall and everyone who walks by can see what that person is looking at - GMail? Shock!) Our new boss, who comes to our office about twice a week to tell us, "Good morning," and then promptly disappears for a few hours, managed to find two laptops for the temps to use. Of course, one of them would not connect to the internet. After working fine for two days, the second decided to jump ship, as well. Ah, if I only had the balls.

The other great thing is that the temps float in and out of our lives so much that no one in the office even knows who the hell is still working here. I mean, I know who still shows up, since I usually see them every morning when they come in. The newest batch of temps were told to come directly to me upon their arrival so I could train them and then set them on their merry little ways. They mistakenly assumed that I was their manager. One of them would even let me know when he left on his bathroom breaks, yet I avoided the awkward explanation that I was, in fact, just a half-notch above him on the office totem pole and that, frankly, I didn't care where he went.

Yesterday, I noticed one of the temps did not show up for work, and I assumed, "Hey, she must be sick." My manager and my boss didn't say anything about it to me, and I figured it didn't matter because I'm not a manager and really don't need / care to know that information. Then, at 2:30, my manager walked up to me and said, "Hey, [The Temp] didn't come in today!"

This morning, when I was complaining to another manager about general office grievances, I mentioned how the temp didn't come in and no one noticed until late in the afternoon. She paused and said, "Wait, who is that?"

We run a tight ship here.