Mom called tonight. She was reading in the newspaper about a new bus company that is offering $2.00 round trip fares between Minneapolis and Chicago. She thought perhaps that I could take the bus instead of fly to chicago next weekend and save our company money. And while I enjoy being the poster child at work for frugality (I'm the one typically at trade shows to pull out the coupons at restaurants) somehow the idea of a seven hour bus trip just doesn't exactly sound like the best plan for me.

However it might work if mom and dad didn't want to drive and wanted to come and visit here.

The bus company only has "select seats" for a dollar, however in looking at their other rates...even paying $45.00 round trip isn't too terrible.

We got to talking Friday about temps with a few of the people I've worked with for awhile and the different personalities that have made it through our group...As promised...here is a sampling of the past nine years of temps:

Karen - older woman, an ordained minister, who moonlited as a massage therapist in the evenings.

Janice - who insisted on bringing stuffed animals (we aren't talking one or two but at least twenty) and adorned every corner of her cube with them. (we are talking the top of the cube walls too)

I can't remember the temp's name but there was one who went out to her car at lunchtime and smoked pot and came back reeking of it. There were only a few of us who apparently were the familiar with that smell (not personally but c'mon - we've been to college.) and it took the management team weeks to catch on to what she was doing.

James - Really "cool" guy and fun to get along with - aspired to be a filmmaker so we had long talks about video and visual arts however one day I was looking for something on his computer and the reason why he was always busy was because he was writing his next epic porn movie - conveniently set in an office.

Lorna - decided to quit "temping" and become an electrical apprentice.

There was a fun guy named Scott whom we all loved. He however ended up falling into trouble and did not show up for work for two days without calling in and it turned out he had drunk so much that he ended up passed out in a gutter in minneapolis and could not remember how to get home.

Jill - an extreme "loud talker" who received a phone call for one of the people in our department and actually peeked her head into the men's restroom to tell that person they had a phone call.

Chris - played in a alternative punk band at night so his entire cube was filled with posters of his band.

Chelly - our former assistant had not had any administrative experience. She was however a sgt. in the military so that made her somewhat qualified to keep us in line. However speaking to her would sometimes prove to be a challenge as she would military speak most of her orders and we wouldn't have a clue what she was talking about.

There are probably 10 or 30 more in the 9 years I've worked there but one thing that I find so very telling is that if I would bring this up to a few other people they wouldn't have a clue what these people's stories are because to them, they are just temporary so somehow that makes their story less important. I'm not saying it's a bad thing but somehow I'd rather work with people (even temporarily) whose story I know beyond what their skills are as an administrative assistant. Each of these people eck out a corner of their world and have dreams or pursuits beyond the temporary. We are terribly hard on our temps (as I was telling our current temp Kay) We expect them to do a lot without a whole lot of direction. We aren't a touchy-feely sort of group either and tend to just all do our own thing which somehow makes us the marketing group.