Temping In Tv Land Toronto, Ontario Temping In TV Land I recently completed a temporary job contract in a company I nicknamed TV Land. A head-hunter named Gene called me about the situation. 'Twenty dollars an hour, great location, great bunch of people. Real interesting work. Al’s the Director of Finance and Accounting. You’ll be helping him cleanup the backlog in accounting. Al’s behind in his bank reconciliations. And, Al’s real interested in your background in FIXED ASSETS.’ This Al must need a life, I thought. My stomach felt queasy. FIXED ASSETS. Can I go back to that life, that awful life of sitting in a cubicle crunching those numbers all day? I had retired from the accounting profession at the ripe old age of thirty-eight. I was spending the summer playing the stock market and thinking about a new career for myself. I said I would write, but hadn’t since I left my old office. ‘Sure, Gene, I’ll go to the interview.’ I considered it something to do, a way to amuse myself for a morning. And, maybe I’d get an idea or two for my writing. I put on a white shirt and tie and headed downtown. Gene was right, TV Land was a nice place. I noticed an expensive sofa and a television in the reception area. It was the perfect spot to gaze at Layla, the receptionist. I asked her how many times a day people do a bit of air guitar to the Eric Clapton tune around her. She laughed. Layla was beautiful. Al came out, shook my hand and called me into his office. He explained to me that the company auditors were coming soon and he had a major backlog. He went through a list of all of his problems. I was in pain listening. He needed reconciliations here, working papers there. Blah blah blah. He talked for a half an hour. My mind was on Layla, wondering if she’d go out with me. A woman named Connie came into Al’s office half way through the interview. She mentioned Layla hadn’t ordered some sort of supplies. Al replied that he’d spank her. Connie laughed and said 'Al, she didn’t order them because YOU didn’t sign the requisition.' Al laughed and said, ‘that’s ok, I’ll spank her anyway.’ I always thought such remarks were considered harassment. Connie seemed to have no issue with it. She was still laughing when she left the office. Al looked at me and said he had lost his train of thought. Thank God. Al drummed his fingers on the table and asked me if I wanted the job. He offered twenty bucks an hour, no benefits, and no vacation pay. I accepted the position immediately. The next Monday, Al showed me to my cubicle. He told me to relax and get to know my co-workers. He said he had a meeting and would be with me shortly. Fine by me. I had a definite plan for the assignment. I decided to stretch the assignment out for as long as possible. If I worked too quickly and efficiently, I’d earn less. Besides, there were things I wanted to get done there. I had access to a computer, a printer, air-conditioning, free coffee and free bottled water. And there were babes everywhere. The woman in the next cubicle had a spectacular figure and a great collection of mini-skirts. Amy was a twenty-eight year old advertising sales representative. The credit manager who sat behind her told me she was good for a hundred and twenty five big ones a year. She had a Porsche and a penthouse condo. I heard her making telephone enquiries about hotel reservations for Paris for her and her boyfriend. Damn, a boyfriend. I asked her if she had an MBA or a business degree. Amy started to laugh and called me a silly old fart. I looked at my watch. It was 9:30. Al was still tied up in his meeting. I turned on my computer. I was delighted to see the computer had a few games on it. Hearts is my favourite. Pauline, Ben and Michele (the computer opponents) gave me a run for my money, but I managed to prevail in three games out of five. An hour had passed. Al was still busy. I figured for show I should walk by his office every half-hour to check his availability. The door was locked. I told Ms Advertising I was going to rush downstairs to get a bagel and I’d be back in a few minutes in case Al was looking for me. She laughed. I knew why. My first afternoon in TV Land was more of the same. I read the paper; checked stock quotes, tried my hand at Tetris on the computer, worked on my writing and telephoned several friends. Al left early. He said he had a dental appointment. After he left I went to visit with Layla. She was sitting there, smiling, and looking beautiful. She was only 19, already engaged and living with her fiancée. They were working on a screenplay together. Damn, a fiancée. So much for this visit. I walked around the office, pretending to look like I had somewhere to go. All of the sales reps had assistants. They were all young, slim and very pretty. I overhead some of their conversations. They did not seem very bright to me. I introduced myself to Melanie and to Donna. They asked me what I was going to be doing. I mentioned Al, the bank reconciliations, the FIXED ASSETS. ‘Apparently, Al REALLY needs my help with the FIXED ASSETS.’ Both ladies looked puzzled. I was trying to think of some accounting jokes, but I blanked. The ladies began a conversation about toe-rings. Toe-rings. Four years of university, fifteen years of work experience and this is what I’m listening to. Both of the ladies had rocks on their wedding fingers. They couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. Their main job, really, was to laugh at their boss’s sexist jokes. I thought about my original judgement, that these women were not bright. I decided I was wrong about that. They were damn bright in putting nice lives together for themselves. They didn’t have to work very hard at TV Land. They had husbands and houses and were planning to have children. There were plenty of older women at TV Land. Like Connie. She was well educated and had a senior position. She really wasn’t so bright though. She had no husband, no children, and no home of her own. She was always complaining, about men, about how six figures doesn’t go very far in Toronto. She treated people like Melanie and Donna badly. I recalled how she didn’t stand up to Al about his spanking remark about Layla. I made a mental note to myself to put Connie in her place when my assignment was done. My assignment at TV Land lasted for four months. I finished Al’s silly FIXED ASSETS project during breaks from my personal projects. A summer student finished the bank reconciliations. I got a lot of writing done, and one article I wrote on TV Land’s dime got published. It was for a homeless newspaper in Toronto. They had no money to pay me for it. That’s only fair, I guess, considering I had corporate sponsorship! On my last day Amy asked me what my future plans were. I told her I was thinking of going into sales, so I could be a yuppie like her. We both laughed again. ‘I think there’s some hope for you yet,’ she said. I jokingly asked if I needed an MBA to get into sales. She shook her head. ‘You got on the job experience for that right here.’ I was puzzled. ‘Look, you milked this assignment for four months. Al thinks you did a wonderful job. I know and you know it’s bogus. Who gives a fig?’ I thanked her. ‘For what?’ she asked. ‘For the education. I really needed it, huh?’ Amy kissed me on the forehead and left the office. A client was taking her to an expensive lunch. Naturally. I went to say goodbye to Layla. It turned out to be Layla’s last day too. She had resigned her position to work full time on her screenplays. I told her what Al had said about her. She laughed. ‘Al’s a character in one of my screenplays. These clowns around here aren’t good for much, but they are good for writing material.’ Layla and I left the building together that last day. ‘This was a great place to work,’ I mentioned. ‘I wish they’d have kept me on longer.’ Layla told me her strategy. She only stays around at a job long enough to get Employment Insurance. Government sponsorship, she called it. ‘Its like an Arts Grant, only there’s less forms to fill out.’ Of course we just had what I call Corporate Sponsorship’. ‘Layla, that’s brilliant.’ I asked her for a date that evening. She reminded me that she has a fiancee, but if they ever broke up, she’d give me a call. Layla offered to take me out for a quick drink and I accepted. We went into a local pub. Layla asked me if my writer’s block was straightened out. I told her yes. She laughed. ‘Finally got laid, Howie?’ she snickered. ‘Oh, no, Layla, something much better than that.’ Layla nodded in agreement. She knew. Layla knew I loved to look at her. But I also listened, and Layla knew I needed to listen. It should have been the other way around. After all, I was forty-one and she was nineteen. I was the one with a university education. I was the one who had worked full-time for as many years as she was alive. But I was also the one who had spent that time with my face buried in a computer crunching numbers. It never dawned on me to just stop, to walk away from that world. Layla knew not to get too involved with that world. She knew it was only for a paycheque, and a place to observe people. Layla reminded me about how I griped about having to listen to those women talk toe-rings. She asked me what was more interesting, my fixed assets or that conversation. I had to admit that the toe-rings were really more interesting. ‘You are pissed off, aren’t you?’ she demanded. ‘I’m an easy read,’ I replied. She kept at me. ‘You are pissed off because it took you forty years to come to TV Land, forty years to get straightened out. Forty years of guilt over what you think you must be doing. Forty years of giving a flying fuck what idiots like Connie think or say. Forty years of merely playing at what you know you should be doing. Forty years is a long time, my son. You are lucky. You have a gift, but you’ve been fucking around for forty years. It could have gone either way. You might have wasted all of your time.‘ She was right. There was nothing else to say about it. I stood up and asked the bartender if he had any of Eric Clapton’s music around. He had the Unplugged CD. Luckily that CD had the song. THE SONG. You know the one, ‘Layla you got me on your knees, Layla I’m begging darlin’ please, Layla darling won’t you ease my worried mind.’ It was the perfect ending to my time with TV Land and my time with Layla. I paid the tab, and went back over to Layla. We got up and danced. Well, it was really me holding on to her for dear life. When the song ended I kissed her on the forehead. She punched me lightly on the arm and said, ‘See ya kid.’ She left the pub. I left a couple minutes later, singing the song. Of course, I changed a word or two. ‘Layla, thanks for easing my worried mind’.
Copyright © 1999 Howard Freedman |