Eternal Optimist

Yesterday a new temp gave me a contact at a recruitment agency.

“Sasha’s great,” she said. “You have to ignore the recruitment sales talk – but they’re all like that. Sasha’s fantastic, truly fantastic. Tell her I recommended you. I’ll vouch for your character.”

I uploaded my CV. Ten minutes later Sasha called. She had the perfect job for me - a secretarial job with the local university. It had only come in yesterday morning. “In fact,” she said, “I’ve just been telling them about how experienced you are. This job will be made for you. Come in tomorrow after work and fill out the forms!”

I was reeling. The new temp beamed at me as I thanked her from the bottom of my heart.

Today I fixed the photocopier five times in a row – no complaints. I filled up stationery, held open doors and made rounds of coffee. I was, in my way, saying a cheerful goodbye to the place because, without a contract, I only have to give a week’s notice.

I arrived at the agency this evening telling myself I’d earned this job after what I’d been through. Six recruitment consultants were screaming with laughter at the far end of the room. One of them signalled they’d seen me. I perched on a bright red reception chair, telling myself it was probably only like this because it was late. A thin blond girl ran over, introduced herself as Sasha and unleashed her lengthy recruitment patter. Then she told me to sit next to a young boy, threw a pile of forms at me and ran back to her friends.

Was it me or did they look and sound more like 18 - 30 holiday reps?
I studied the forms. They wanted my full residential history, employment history, references and personal details. This was horrible. Sasha had taken my CV and I hadn’t thought to bring duplicates. Why were these people so noisy? I couldn’t concentrate. The boy looked at me aghast. “I’ve filled my form out wrong,” he said...”I’ve done it wrong.” Uncertain, he repeated it again louder. The girls giggled, but nobody moved. What about the university job, I thought?

Sasha came back. “Let’s swap you two around, huh?”

The boy and I looked at each other.

“She’s got to do a typing test” Sasha said, jerking a thumb at me. “So she’ll have to sit there.”

“Typing test?” I said. “No-one said anything about a typing test!”

Every one of Howard's typing insults sprang to mind. I’ve been typing full-time for almost a decade but my hands still trembled with nerves.

“Can’t you tell me about the university job?” I asked, as she logged me into the test screen.

“Well,” she said, frowning at the PC, “I may have given you the impression that there was a job available now...that’s not to say that there won’t be soon. What I meant was...I told the university all about you...how we had someone of your...experience on our books and they were quite interested.”

“There’s no job?”

“But there could be...They were very excited about you.”

The typing test started. I tried my best to copy type as the words swam. My shaking hands wouldn’t type what I told them. Ringing phones were left unanswered and the recruitment consultants screamed with laughter.

I didn’t finish the test. I sat there – staring at the screen. They showed me out.

All the way home I cursed our temp. I should have guessed what was in store after her annoying comment yesterday as she'd gave me Sasha's details.

“Good luck. It must be difficult for you working with Howard,” she said. “Has he always been obsessed with you like that? It’s romantic really.”

A few months with our firm will do wonders for her optimism.

See you soon.

Eva x