I'm discouraged. I admit it. I've tried to have an upbeat attitude, but sometimes you just have one of those days. This was one of those days.

My main annoyance had to do with the temp agency. Scrap that. My main annoyance had to do with the fact that I even have to deal with the temp agency. I really hoped that, by this time in my self employment adventure, I would have enough work lined up that I wouldn't need to rely on the agency any more. I mean, after all, I have leafleted the county, my father has very kindly run two ads in the newspaper on my behalf, I have gone out and canvassed party supply stores, vet's offices, and other businesses. I've worked on flyers and brochures, agonized over business cards before having them printed up and given them out to everybody who was not moving too fast for me to launch one into their pocket.

And then there's The Hub. He is an excellent carpenter and he can fix almost anything....and I know that many people were just waiting for him to get fed up with car hauling so he could follow his true calling and become a handyman. I am so all for this. I was the one who told him that he wouldn't even have to advertise, that once word got out on the quality of this work, he would have plenty of work. And, praise God, ( and thanks to our good Friend Will) everything I said would happen, did happen. Don't hear me saying I'm not happy for him, because I am and I stand behind him 100%.....

But, does it seem fair to you that the person who has invested HOURS of research at the library, made an appointment with the small business administration, and spent time and money on advertising still doesn't even have enough work to justify turning down a temp job? And The Hub, who basically picked up a hammer and announced to friends and family, "I'm ready" has to be reminded to return his phone calls? I know, I know that there is a lot more demand for the type of work The Hub can do. Anybody can walk a dog or clean a toilet....and that's why doubt is starting to creep in.

Maybe, as much as I want to be of service to others, this isn't going to work. Maybe it's a bad idea. The wrong place, the wrong time...especially now that it's getting to be summertime and the world is swarming with teenagers trying to get little pick up jobs and also picking up more responsibility in their own homes.

Maybe the Lord is going to close all doors on me until I am forced to try to understand and cope with the byzantine and vicious worlds of newspaper and magazine publishing (SCAREY! SCAREY! if this blog had big red letters those big letters would be red letters!). Maybe He really does mean "Publish or Perish"

In the meantime, there's the temporary agency. In order to do this matching job I had to have another background check and do another drug test. I felt like saying to agency rep, "What, you think that last assignement was so bad that I developed a drug habit and committed a felony all in the last thiry days?" Then I had to sign a three page non-disclosure agreement, stating that I wouldn't sell any of the medical company's secrets. When signing this I did say, "Well this is pretty stupid. I can't even read the language that I am doing the proofreading in, so it's not very likely that I could sell the information to anybody!"

Then, I read a copy of the job description and it said the dress was "business casual". Now, those of you who don't see me all the time should know that, for anything remotely work related I dress extremely conservatively In fact, even to go down to the temp agency, I slipped on a cotton linen jacket over my print blouse with a collar and dark blue, loosely fitting jeans. Not only was I not showing any cleavage, you couldn't even glimpse my forearms or my knees on a day when it was 85 degrees outside.....just to be respectful of a) the large orthodox jewish population in the area where the office is located, and b) respectful of the image of the agency office in case a prospective client came in while I was there. I always wear a skirt, if not a dress, on the first day of any assignment, no matter what, and then "adjust". But, almost all the time, by the time I realize that the other women are either wearing a) as little as possible or b) stuff you used to wear only to rake leaves in, except it's clean, a certain "dye has been cast" and I have already come across as stuffy and uptight to my co-workers and my managers. So, I innocently asked, " Do they sometimes wear jeans at this place?"

Oh, my God. You would have thought I said, "Do they launder money over there?" This woman, the agency rep, looked down her nose at me and started going on, snippily "Well, you know, you'll be working in the office! I'm sure there ARE people who wear jeans but this is a PROFESSIONAL environment..."
I was so tempted to say, "You mean like the last professional office you sent me to where everybody's underwear was hanging out?" What I did say was, interrupting her, "I know how to dress for work, I'm just finding that others don't have the same standards. It's embarrassing to show up and stand out like a sore thumb."

She didn't get it. She was on a roll. I didn't feel like wasting the time and breath to talk to her anymore. Meanwhile, another employee came in to the office wearing a pair of slacks and a collarless shirt cut down to Pittsburgh. I just let the agency rep reach the end of her obviously canned speech on the subject of jeans. But I'm sure my annoyence was clear on my face, especially since now I had to drive back to my home town, wait at the lab, pee in a cup and all of that.

It used to be that stuff like this was not a big deal to me...but now I feel annoyed. After all there was no reason for anybody to do any of the things that they did associated with this paperwork. No reason for a new background check when the last one was 30 days ago, no reason for the drug screen, nor the non-disclosure agreement. It wasn't just a waste of two hours of my day, but a waste of the background chekc company's resources, the lab's resources, and even the person who felt obligated to give me the "professional work wear lecture". This is time that none of us are going to get back! It isn't like, at the end of our lives, God is going to give us a rebate for all the time we spent doing stupid stuff. It's up to us to not waste our time and the time of our fellow human beings.

Remember: just say no to stupid stuff!