Looks like I've been averaging about one new post per week. Not too bad I guess, considering there hasn't been that much going on to write about. Here's a few headlines though:

Had my physical exam yesterday. Still haven't got the (lack of) criminal history report back yet. I did send in the other documents, and they have started the visa process in Seoul.

I'll be returning to SF on August 18th in the evening. I'll have one day to get my E-2 visa, then one last day to do a little more sightseeing in SF (*cough*Castro*cough*)

I wasn't going to do it but I couldn't resist. I broke down and got the new Harry Potter on Saturday. I'm on about page 200, and it's been pretty good so far. I do think Dumbledore's going to die, but if you know, don't tell me. Shhh!

And now finally, last Thursday I went to Office Team and got re-registered with them. I was getting a little bored frankly, and there was no way my money was going to last. Sooo...back to temping, at least um, temporarily. They had me do all their tests again, which I'd hoped to avoid, but oh well. I got 65wpm on the typing and hit something like 850-950 keystrokes per minute on the data entry. My Word score was 92 percent and Excel was 86 percent. Whatever. I don't care about those, but when one is being evaluated, one wants to do well, doesn't one? The whole process was a little dehumanizing. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't help feeling processed, like I was a product or a commodity, a set of fast fingers attached to a warm body.

That's not even the best part. The best part is the assignment they gave me. OT called on Friday and said they had work for me. They sent me to TRM corporation to help with a data entry/sorting project. See, I have something of a history with this company, which follows thusly:

The day I first moved to Portland, July 31st 1997, there was a construction accident at a new parking garage being built at the airport. A portion of the garage collapsed moments before my flight arrived. When I landed everything was in Chaos, and there was an extremely long queue for the taxis. I ended up sharing a Towncar with two other women who were going to Vancouver, Washington. A red-headed woman in the front seat asked me enough questions to find out what my deal was and when she found out I'd studied French told me she knew someone who'd gotten a job in Portland specifically because she spoke French. That company turned out to be TRM. I went through the application and interview process only to be passed over. (Something about not being experienced, and my French not being up to speed.) Still determined--having I might add, considerably more spunk back then than I now posess--I found out somehow that I might be able to work there as a temp and gain entry to the company through a sort of back-door.

So temp I did, through Volt Services. They seemed surprised to see me, but I was happy to be working, and determined to do a good job. What made it considerably more difficult however was the 6am start time. in order to get there on time from my house in north Portland, I had to leave at 4:45 and catch a 75 down to Hollywood, then hop on a 12 to 57th, and finally a 71 to 121st and Prescott. Even then I still had to walk about a third of a mile to get to the actual office. If got up on time and made all my connections I could just barely make it on time. More often than not I rolled in anywhere from 6:10-6:30, or even around 8:00 a couple of times.

The position I'd originally applied for was customer service, the job I did as a temp was meter reading. That is to say, all the drug stores, grocery stores, and ma & pa convenience stores owned by Mrs. Park and Mr. Patel that had TRM copy machines had to be called once a month to get the number off the copy counter for billing purposes. It was an obviously thankless task that no one who wasn't desperate for a job would do. Enter me. I did the job for three months and long story short, screwed up so many times, particularly with regards to punctuality, and was treated so poorly by the other staff that I eventually decided I had no interest in working for them on a full-time basis. When I was hired by AAA I was more than happy to leave TRM behind. The ironic thing is, a week after I left I got a call from TRM offering me a full-time job. I turned them down.

Fast forward to now. When Office Team told me where I'd be working I actually made an audible groan which I tried to turn into a noise of polite recognition. With some trepidation I re-entered TRM world yesterday at 10:30, following my Doctor's appointment. Surprisingly, the entire call center is gone. I have to confess part of me hopes the entire call center operation was either eliminated, or moved to Bangalore and that all the former CSA's were laid off. However it's probably a much safer bet that they expanded it and moved it to another office here in Portland somewhere. I'm working in the same space where there used to be rows of cubicles but it's now just a wide open area with a few folding tables in one corner with computer terminals on top, and that is where I'm working. Well, I say working in a very loose sense because I've yet to do any work here. All morning in fact I've been writing this blog entry and getting paid twelve dollars an hour for it, thank you very much. All day yesterday, after they showed me what I'd be working on we just sort of sat around waiting to get some work. Again, whatever. If they're happy to pay me to sit on my ass and write snarky blog posts about them, I'm happy to be of service.

One could look at this in a Cosmic, thermodynamic sense. That is, in any given office, there is going to be a certain amount of sitting around. Maybe if they pay a bunch of temps to do the required sitting around the other employees will actually get more work done, thereby saving them money in the long run. Make any sense? I didn't think so either.