In case your parents, your friends, or members of your parole board give you any guff about being a temp, I have included this section to show you that temping has a proud and honorable heritage. Despite its being a popular career option these days, temping is still looked down upon by people with "real" jobs. No matter how many doors open for you, how many contacts you make, and how much you achieve, temping has a stigma attached to it that will be difficult for you to shake. Yet know this: throughout history, great men and women have temped their way into the annals of history, breaking boundaries, forging paths, and creating legends. And so may you, someday.
Judas Iscariot
As one of the twelve associate administrative directors in ChristCorp Industries, Judas "Judy" Iscariot was temporarily transferred to senior accounting supervisor and placed in charge of the company expenses. Judas performed his new job with utmost attention yet when the monthly accounting review came up, there was a discrepancy in the petty-cash fund of approximately thirty pieces of silver. Judas, his back against the wall, defended himself from the chief priests from RomaTech, a conglomerate of ChristCorp, citing that Jesus Christ, president and founder of the company, was to blame because "that dude never keeps his receipts." The priests, in conjunction with the human resources department, agreed to pay Judas the thirty silver coins out of their "miscellaneous" cost center, in exchange for a memo that would "betray" Christ, which when leaked to the press, caused the stock to dip sharply. Judas later regretted his actions and hung himself, causing a panic since he was also in charge of the coffee club dues.
Sorghaghtani Beki
When Genghis Khan retired from the Mongolian Empire in 1227, there was a position to be filled in the ranks of the Mongol hordes. Khan had left no orderly system to determine which of his sons should take his place, having procrastinated while developing his org charts in typical "horde-management" fashion. One son briefly held the spot but was then head-hunted by China (quite literally, in fact), and one or two other candidates drifted in and out, ultimately leaving the position of Great Khan barren once again. In stepped Sorghaghtani "Becky" Beki, widow of one of Genghis’ sons. The history books show that she quickly placed her son in the spot, but come on, we all know he was just a mama’s boy and she was in charge. Though really just a temp, Beki quickly reorganized and restructured the Empire, which swiftly conquered China, Baghdad and Persia in inter-company softball games. Implementing a host of new programs, she revolutionized the hordes with both combat and Windows NT training courses, as well as introducing them to Confucian thought and penning the best-seller "Seven Habits of Highly Successful Bloodthirsty Barbarian Savages." Sorghaghtani is a true giant in temp history, showing just how much an outsider can do with the proper motivation, determination, and cunning.
William Shakespeare
William "Shaky" Shakespeare is a good example of what a temp can accomplish when he really sets his mind to it. Author of over one hundred plays and sonnets, Shakespeare wrote his literary masterpieces while on various temping assignments across England. His work was heavily edited, however, and his famous line: "All the world’s an office, the men and women merely temps" was subverted to something about a stage or some such nonsense. The play he penned about boring temp assignments called "Whatcha doin’? ‘Bout nothing." was equally subverted. Some confusion regarding who Shakespeare actually was, and if he even truly existed, is the result of a timecard scam Willy had going with some fellow temps who owed him favors. Billy-Boy would submit timecards under a number of different aliases such as Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, and Roger Manners, just to name a few, at businesses across London. He would then be paid for jobs he was not even working, in exchange for sonnets that were "guaranteed to get you some primo tail." As a consequence, it is all but impossible for historians to track the career of the real Shakespeare, the man who inspired me to write silly crap while getting paid to work.
Christopher Columbus
Christopher "Chip" Columbus was an Italian who temped for the Spanish. He had a simple task: establish a new trade route to India and pick up lunch for everyone while he was out. This turned into a much bigger assignment than he had ever guessed: he wound up discovering America in 1492. In the true nature of a typical temp, he had no friggin’ idea he had found a whole new continent, so he named the natives "Indians", thinking he was in China. Upon returning to Europe, he landed in England, yet thought he was in Africa, so he called the puzzled British citizens "Eskimos." Columbus made four voyages over the years, each time landing in one place, thinking he was somewhere else, and misnaming the crap out of everyone. Meanwhile, the Assistant Planner in Map Services, Amerigo Vespucci, wound up taking credit for discovering the New World and named it after himself, beginning the long and annoying heritage of permanent employees taking advantage of temps.
Incidentally, Columbus had made his first journey on three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, exhibiting an almost ridiculous need for redundancy, a trait evident in many offices today in the form of sixteen billion binders all filled with the same documents no one ever looks at.
Benedict Arnold
Known these days as a turncoat and traitor, Benedict "Benny" Arnold remains perhaps one of the most misunderstood and tragic figures in temp lore. A permanent employee of America, he found himself working hard yet being under-appreciated. He received no benefits to cover the cost of a serious leg ailment, and was constantly forced to relocate at America’s whim, from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts and even as far north as Quebec, a Canadian province filled with French people. This last indignity alone is enough to understand why Benny would begin temping for the British in 1779, but history also shows a dispute over hourly-pay rates and America’s refusal to reimburse for mileage. While he was paid well initially by the Brits, attempts to secure a permanent position failed, leaving him to start his own shipping business. Unable to compete with Fedex and UPS, Arnold died in 1801, becoming one of the greatest cautionary tales in temp lore.
Clara Barton
Originally a teacher in Massachusetts, Clara "Hotlips" Barton realized, as we all do at some point, that children are evil and trying to teach them anything is ultimately fruitless. Working for a while in Washington D.C., she then became a temp for the Union during the Civil War, administering medical care that made her name synonymous with benevolence and generosity. Although the International Red Cross would not hire her permanently because she did not have a penis, she continued to temp with them during the Franco-Prussian War, in which the French got the stuffing kicked out of them by someone, presumably the Prussians. Barton also had a major impact upon the Geneva Convention and soon had changed the very face of the Red Cross, who until then had only provided wartime care. Clara’s influence can still be seen in the workplace, in the form of Red Cross volunteers constantly dropping from ceilings in an attempt to drain blood from employees on a weekly basis.
Rosa Parks
Rosa "The Hammer" Parks fought one of the greatest battles in the history of the United States: the fight against carpools. Having no car of her own, Parks decided she would rather commute by bus than subject herself to even another minute of time spent with her co-workers. She had to temp with those total morons, sure, but there was no way in hell she was going to be squeezed into a car with them. In the midst of all this, Rosa fought to end racism and segregation as a secretary and advisor for the NAACP as well as making several attempts to vote when it was not legal for her to do so. It all came to a head on December 1, 1955, when she made her stand by remaining seated. What began there ended in November, 1956, with the Supreme Court’s ruling that segregation on public transportation is unconstitutional. She stands as a champion of justice and equality, and has inspired me to avoid company carpools at all costs, even choosing to skateboard over forty miles to work during Hurricane Andrew when my car was in for a tune-up. Rosa was also strongly opposed to "Bring-Your-Crabby-Disinterested-Child-To-Work-And-Make-The-Temp-Babysit-For-You Day," a battle that has not yet been won.
Albert Einstein
It's a little known fact, but before Albert "Skip" Einstein became a genius and stopped combing his hair, he was a Temp in a patent office. He found the job tedious and his huge, pulsing brain soon turned to other matters, such as sex. After being chided for daydreaming, Einstein began trying to look busy, scribbling letters and numbers on the papers in front of him and focusing his attention on more important subjects, such as sex. This went on for endless hours, until Einstein happened to glance at a clock and saw he had only been at the job for fifteen minutes. Inspiration suddenly struck him, and he immediately began thinking about sex. But a few minutes later he began to work in earnest, and soon he created this formula: E=mc2, where E is the amount of time before you can go home and watch Wheel of Fortune, m is a really big number which increases in proportion to how much your job sucks, and c is another really big number, like 12 jillion. Einstein knew, more than anyone else in history, that it's going to be a long day.
