Wednesday, October 4, 2000
Wedbush Morgan Securities
Portland, Oregon
I'm temping at Wedbush Morgan today. And I don't know if I can do this ever again. Here is a conversation that took place with me and my supervisor. (My unspoken thoughts are in parenthesis).
Kate: Hi Laura, you can go ahead and take over the front desk, Tracy will come out with some tedious project for you to do.
Me: OK, thanks Kate! (great another tedious project).
Tracy: Hi Laura, how are you? If I could just get you to three hole punch these statements for the brokers (as she loads a two-foot pile of papers before me).
Me: Haha! Oh my! (You're not serious are you?)
Tracy: Now some of them go in binders and some of them don't, and some of them don't need to be hole punched, so let me tell you which ones: OK, CFGE need holes, but no binder, CFWF need holes but no binder, CFPD don't need holes AND don't need a binder.
Me: OK, I think I got it, CFGE and CFWF don't need a binder and CFPD don't need holes.
Tracy: No, CFPD don't need holes AND don't need a binder.
Me: Oh, let me write that down (yeah, because I would really try to stick unpunched papers in a three ring binder).
Tracy: Here's the three hole punch, only stick about five in at a time or else you'll break it.
Me: OK, I'll be careful (cause that would be a terrible thing if we broke it and I couldn't continue this hellacious task).
...two hours later...still punching...
Tracy: Hi Laura, would you mind punching these papers for me too?
Me: No problem (if I finish all these maybe I'll get to it)
...30 minutes later...still punching...
Faint voice in back: Tracy, I need these hole punched
Me: (no...no, no...)
Tracy: Laura, I have more papers! Ha ha, you're going to be punching papers all day!
Me: Ha ha (bite me).
...1:00 PM (right after my lunch break)...
Tracy: Now, you know you have to stay until 4:30 right? Because the guy yesterday just left at 4:00.
Me: Yeah, but I was wondering if I could leave at 4:25 so I can catch my express bus home. Is that OK?
Tracy: Well, actually, the phones keep ringing until 4:30 so we really need you to stay. OK, this is how you put these papers into the binders, just slip these metal brads through the holes and close them like this.
Me: OK (hoho! Now THAT's tricky)
Tracy: Oh, and if you could slip these papers of mine into this big binder, just unclip it like this and slide them on like this.
...and then she actually takes them out after she showed me how to put them in...
Me: OK (Hmmm...you couldn't have just kept those in there? Am I really learning something new here?)
Tracy: That's a pretty necklace you're wearing.
Me: Oh, thank you (bite me).
I've had a couple jobs like that. The only joy I ever got from working there, was the inevitable day I went to lunch and didn't come back.
ReplyDeleteI laughed my whole way home thinking about what they were going through without me.
I love it Laur! Is this a new job? If so,man am I out of the loop! You are to funny, and I love that you write what all of us would be thinking!
ReplyDeleteI would have strangled her by lunchtime. How you kept your cool is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteSo why did you move away from Portland again?
ReplyDeleteI remember reading that in Hawaii, when I was working for the devils wife at a flower shop in Turtle Bay. It was a bad time for all of us...
ReplyDelete