Temp’s Lament

Consigned as relief to understaffed places

Prepared to change jobs on a daily basis

You try to look and perform your best

Outwardly smiling, inwardly stressed

Wherever the job, it’s always the same

Your badge bears a number—never your name

Your training consists of one or two tries

The desk you’re assigned has been stripped of supplies

The copy machine is an albatross

When questions arise, you can’t find your boss

You can only make calls from a special phone

And when lunchtime arrives, you eat alone

As the days wear on, you start to fit in

You’re thankful not to move on again

But you’re barred from training, meetings, reviews—

You’re always the last to hear vital news

Then after weeks of working late

Just when you think things are going great

Down comes the final indignity

The ultimate corporate malignity

Of being “released” with no explanation

No handshake, no “thank you,” no personalization

Disposed of like trash thrown out on the street

You take a day off to climb back on your feet

Then ignoring foreknowledge of what to expect

And suppressing the pain of lost self-respect

You move on to another similar place

Recycled again, with that same smiling face

Sherrie J. Lyons

©June 1999