Winning the battle....

My wrist support pad remains on my desk. No attempts to reclaim it have been made yet.

When I leave this place, the one thing I will be taking with me will be the wrist support.

I have been archiving for a week now. This involves putting folders into boxes and creating a list of what is in the folders and what numbered box I am putting the folder in. It is fascinatingly dull work. So dull that I attended a morning tea for new starters in order to have 30 minutes' respite from archiving.

Which is basically choosing Hades over Hell.

The morning tea included golden snippets of conversation such as:
- the size of the thyroid gland on the woman in RPA on tv last night
-how long it takes to travel by train from Whittlesea to Melbourne and the comparative time it takes to do the same journey by car
-how someone really enjoyed loose leaf filing 'but don't tell anyone' - as if the secret was right up there in taboo-land with a preference for rimming
-how lucky I was that I had been offered part time work after only 2 months with the firm because 'usually it's 3 months before you're allowed to take up a position'

I wondered during this session if archiving was really that bad.

I have a training session this afternoon on Workplace Behaviour. It is two hours. Now, as a fully functioning adult member of society who has spent 10 years in office environments, I would say that I am somewhat familiar with appropriate workplace behaviour. But it's compulsory and we get a free lunch. Again, it is better than archiving. But 2 hours? Will they be going into detail such as 'don't poo on your desk' 'don't pick your bum at the photocopier, and if you do, don't press the buttons afterward'?

honestly.

Would you like some bureaucracy with that?

Yesterday I had 3 tapes of dictation to type.

After 1 and a 1/2 tapes, my wrists weren't feeling too good so I emailed Office Services and requested a wrist support pad for my desk. They called me with their response. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hi
Them: Hi, we received your request for a wrist support pad.
Me: Yeah. I can collect it if you like.
Them: Actually before we give you one we have to send someone to do an ergonomic assessment at your desk.
Me: But I need one now - I have a lot of typing.
Them: Unfortunately it's company policy to complete an ergonomic assessment before we are allowed to give them out. I can book you in for one.
Me:Will that be today?
Them: No
Me: I need it now. I'm doing a lot of typing and my wrists are sore
Them: *pause while they prick up at the sounds of 'potential workcover action' hidden in the timbre of the words 'sore' and 'wrists'* Well, we have one in storage that you can use but we will have to take it away later and then book you in for an assessment.
Me: Ok.

So I go to Office Services and pretty much repeat the above conversation, but this time the tone of my voice and my facial expression makes it perfectly clear to the OS chick that I think the whole thing is a crock of shit. She tries to be more flexible by finishing the conversation with these words: If you're used to having one then it should be ok - I'll consult with HR and if they say it's ok you can keep it otherwise we will have to take it back off you.
Me: Fine. No Problem.

The wrist support pad is currently hidden under the desk.

Part time lover

So this full time temping secretarial gig is beginning to get old. To the point where I'm back on Seek.com.au (ok, so I was still on Seek from Day 1 of this assignment) browsing over jobs I don't really want but that are part time so hopefully this will reduce 'bitching about day job' time by 50%. Leaving me time to bitch about public transport, the fucking liberal government, my sex life, money and other miscellaneous items in between.

I was excited by a 5 day fortnight position advertised on Seek and applied through the agency - only to discover that the position was in the company that I'm currently temping in now. The Stepford Wives Firm that includes 2 hour seminars on workplace behaviour for all new starters (see previous entry regarding team 'exercises' on same topic). The feeling I had when I discovered this was akin to the feeling you get when you sidestep a fresh dog turd while walking down the street only to step in another stinky pile while you were avoiding the first one.

The interview was this morning with the Department Co-ordinator and the usual HR token cheerleader who is required to sit in on these things in order to make her job look like, well, a proper job. And despite me having worked in the company for over a month now, despite me having worked in that department for 3 days and knowing the Co-ordinator - I was still subjected to the usual bullshit barrage of interview questions. 'Where do you see yourself in 5 years' 'what has been a challenging situation for you' ('sitting here and pretending to take it as seriously as you do?') blah blah blah blah.

The role is a 4 month part time contract role. Yet they seemed taken aback when they asked what I liked about temping and I replied 'the lack of commitment'.

The role is vacant now. It needs to be filled immediately. Yet they said they'd get back to me within the week for the SECOND ROUND interview (this is a secretarial position, remember) and thus I am underworked and overpaid in another department until I hear from them and they are overpaying a temp in that department until they get in touch with me.

Logic is fast becoming just another nonsensical word.

An hour in the life of a Relief Secretary (street value $23 p/h)

Being a Relief Secretary is not for everyone. If you have no ambition, like being treated like a retarded child and could hold a conversation with a block of wood then this is the life for you. Most large companies have a 'relief team' comprised of a bunch of ladies who are sent to various departments to warm the seats of the full time secretaries who are sick or on vacation or just having the day off because they hate their job. The thing is, when you are sick, the world doesn't actually stop turning. When you miss a few days in your job, things the laws of gravity don't change, pigs don't fly and companies do not go bankrupt.
Thus the relief secretary who comes to replace the supposedly irreplaceable finds that there is no work to do.
It is 10.09am and I have had no work today. I have sent an email around the office asking for work, as is kissass company policy but it has gone unheeded. Yesterday after lunch, from 2pm to 5.15pm I HAD NO WORK. I don't mean very little, I mean none.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm not only a relief secretary, I'm a temp? Which means, for most firms including this one, that I am not worthy of decent conversation. The only conversation I was engaged in today was with a lifer relief secretary who tried to talk to me about how it was good that we had a system in place in the office because it made things easier when you were relieving someone. And wasn't it nice to be a relief secretary?

I smiled, agreed in a non-committal fashion and then turned my back on her and continued my private text message to a friend.

Induction

So, I work in an office environment - a really fucking boring one. In a big corporation in an industry that can't be named because Melbourne is just too frigging small. Melbourne is to the world what Yarraville is to the suburbs - a mini version of real life. Everything in Yarraville is small - the streets, the cars, the dogs, even the Saturday breakfasts - plus they don't know how to poach their eggs but no matter.

After a stint of NEIS-sponsored not-having-to-work-for-the-man-ness I am back working full time as a temp in Widget Pty Ltd.

I fucking hate it.

This company is so large that they have fortnightly induction sessions to deal with the intake of staff (which should give you some indication of what kind of place it is to work in, what with such a high turnover). I am no stranger to training modules - having temped all around the world. I am no stranger to learning - having gone to school for 13 years. To get accepted with this company you have to be pretty experienced and have a high skill set (secretarially speaking) - which is funny because once you make it to induction, they treat you like retarded kids for 3 days to the point where they almost re-teach you how to spell your own name.

Our trainer was stereotypically company fodder. She'd been there for 14 years, had all the lame jokes down pat and spoke about teamwork and shit like that. We were subjected to a powerpoint presentation of an hour which outlined how fucking fantastic Widget Pty Ltd was. We spent a lot of time being taught the firm's 'vision'. This firm, Ms Company Fodder explained, had taken 8 months to come up with their vision and the vision was along the lines of 'to be the leader in the industry'. 8 months. She then asked if we had any questions before lunch. I wanted to ask 'yes I have one - are you fucking joking?' but decided I just couldn't be arsed. (and then later we found out that they were in the process of revising the vision which would take another year - I'm beginning to understand why employees embezzle funds from large companies - they assume that there's too much money in the company if it can employ an entire department to come up with one sentence a year).

After lunch on the first day we got into groups of 2 or 3 to talk about appropriate behaviour in the workplace. This consisted of reading out scenarios from a selection of cards and then discussing whether it was 'above or below the line behaviour'. Par example: 'Gary sometimes wears pink shirts to work. Tom, a colleague, makes a comment one day that Gary might be gay. Steve, the manager, takes Tom aside and explains to him that this comment is not acceptable in the workplace. Is Steve's comment above or below the line behaviour?' To my disappointment, everyone else in the group took this seriously. Other trainees used this example as a springboard to discuss their previous workplaces and after a good 10 minutes, everyone agreed that Steve's comment was appropriate. Except me. Isn't it obvious that Steve's the actual homosexual who uses any and every excuse to take Tom aside and talk to him because he fancies the pants off him?  And Gary's not gay - just colourblind. Isn't that obvious? No?

Okay, let's break for some lunch now. You can go and have a walk around the city as the weather's so nice, which is so unlike Melbourne, ha ha ha, and then we'll meet back here at, let's say, 5 past 2 and begin our phone training. Has everyone used a phone before? Good.