Deceived Temp Toils in Meat Industry Sweat Shop

When I was in school and short on money, I decided to become a temp. I thought it would be the best way to work around my unpredictable schedule. I had worked as an office assistant in school, and my typing speed had gone up to 70 wpm, so I though I’d be able to go on some good and high-paying assigbnments. The woman at the agency told me there’d be lots of secretarial and receptionist postitions for me. She called the day after I interviewed with her and told me my first assignment would be taking phone orders for honey-glazed hams. (This was right before Thanksgiving, which turns out to be the busiest time of the year for the glazed ham industry.) Though the pay was a measley $6 an hour, I thought it would be better than nothing. I have good phone skills, so I thought it would be easy. I looked forward to having some spending money for a change.

The address I was given turned out to be a deli. No one was expecting me. “We thought you were coming tomorrow,” they mumbled. They were really rude! I was ready to start taking phone orders, though, but I soon found out I had been mislead. My job was to make sandwhiches hand out free samples outside, mop the floor, etc. I’d worked in food service before and hated it. If I’d wanted to work in it again, I wouldn’t have gone to a temp agency, I would have gone directly to a sandwich shop! And even by deli standards, this place was weird. We weren’t allowed to leave the building for our half-hour lunch, which, despite the law, was the only break we were given all day. They also tried to make us stay late, but I just mumbled stupid excuses about having to go somewhere. I hated to lie, but I really didn’t feel like I owed them the truth. I’m embarassed to say it took me two whole days of this bullshit to quit. After the first day, I called the lady at the agency and told her what happened. She pretended to be surprised and promised the next day would be different. I was wary, but I went, hoping that if I completed this assignment, better ones would follow. It was exactly the same the next day, so when I got home, I phoned the agency and quit.