A temporary life

It was early 1972 and I'd just quit my job at Olympia. The next day I wandered down to Hammersmith Broadway and went into an employment agency to register. I quite fancied a couple of days off to mooch around and maybe visit some friends in the Cotswolds, but it was not to be. I left my details and went back to my bedsit. I'd been back an hour and the doorbell rang. It was someone from the agency to say that they had a temp job and they needed me urgently. I went back to the agency and was sent off to do some temporary work in an office block in Victoria.
It seems incredible looking back, but there was full employment in the late 60s/early 70s. If you were a shop, office or factory worker in London, it was quite possible to quit one job and walk next door and get another within the hour.
I went on a couple of assignments with the agency that week. Two days later they fixed me up with an interview at Telfers and I started there the following Monday. Time out of work- half a day.
I worked a day or two at the Gas Board accounts dept. They had fallen behind dealing with customer queries so they got temporary staff in to clear the backlog. It was impossible for a temporary worker who'd undergone all of ten minutes induction to make head or tail of the job. I shuffled papers on my desk and alternated between staring out of the window and going to the men's room until the end of the day. I never did understand what I was supposed to do at the office in Victoria either. I just picked up a piece of paper and wandered around trying to look busy. Nobody asked me what I was doing, so I carried on until the end of the day, had my card signed and went home.

I went back to temporary work in the mid 1990s. For about four years I did anything and everything. I parked vans, delivered charity bags and made house to house collections, prepared new cars for delivery to the dealers, and delivered stationery to schools in a 7 1/2 ton lorry. I also delivered furniture and even made bombproof security doors. I packed chocolate, made all sorts of bread and rolls including several million hot cross buns and even walked around a landfill site picking up litter. I enjoyed that one, except that my DMs finally started leaking. I'd walked mile upon mile in them, trudging around the streets of Hereford and Colchester, delivering charity bags.
If there was work going I'd do it. I packed dog food in an open sided shed when it was snowing outside. It was either do that or not work at all. I worked in a leather belt factory, cutting the belts from the hides. I worked for the Environment Agency, plotting the flood defences on the Rivers Nene and Welland on the national computer. I typed up witness statements and collated evidence. I entered data on spreadsheets. I worked as a kitchen porter and washer upper. And I sold tickets to the 1998 World Cup from a call centre.
Call centres. I worked in a few of them. They need a chapter on their own.