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So you want to be a temp, huh? Well let me let you know that there are plenty of things you should know about being a temp before sending that resume of yours to an agency.

As an individual who has temped for roughly six months in 2003/04, as well as since June 2006 through present day I feel that I am qualified as an expert temporary employee.

Given this background here is my list of rules that are broken down into five categories that one must abide by in order to survive working as a temp in ANY office:

Time Management: You’re always busy. Even if you have one task of stapling two pieces of paper together hold off on completing the entire task. If you do it and then hand it in, you will have nothing to do, and will be seen as someone who is only taking up space. Never be left without at least one task on your plate. Get to the office early. Even if you are still piss drunk from the night before, when your manager walks in and sees that you’re at your desk already, he or she will assume that you are a really dedicated worker, as such they will cut you some slack in other areas that you are bound to screw up in, such as sending the wrong email out to 3,000 plus people in your company stating that they have all lost their jobs due to downsizing. Half an hour lunches, always! Everyday you should have what you want to have for lunch. No matter what it is. Say you work in Midtown, and you have a craving for pastrami on rye from Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side. That’s easy, all you have to do is stroll to the F or V train, and take it downtown to 2nd Avenue. No one will notice that you were gone for so long, and when you get back to work you will be happier for satisfying your needs, however, always write off that you took only a half an hour for lunch. No manager wants to be seen as being a slacker and allowing their temp to have a two hour lunch break, so they will sign off on your timesheets stating that you had half an hour lunches, no questions asked. Plus you will still want to get paid for not being allowed to just nap your hangovers off all day long. You were just doing something – just lie! Say you took a four-hour lunch break, so you returned to your desk to get your wallet or purse before leaving to going out to happy hour times 10, and your boss says that they were looking for you all afternoon. Let them know that you had just stepped away for a moment, that you weren’t sure why he or she kept missing you at your desk. Make up anything, the bathroom, the printer, or the copier, they won’t care what your excuse is really; as long as you don’t say that you just saw some great new movie on 42nd Street you’re fine.

Making Friends: Never befriend the first person you meet that seems friendly. This will be your most certain doom. They are almost always the worst and most hated person on the floor. They are the first people on the floor to act friendly to you in an attempt to have a “buddy” that they can rely on, which will understand why “everyone on the floor sucks” on a daily basis – basically they will attempt to brainwash you into being as depressed as they are. These people must be avoided at all costs, and if befriended they leave you in the poor position of being too closely related to the floor douche bag, and as such, expect a very brief assignment as a temp in that office. Smile. When walking in the hallways of your office be courteous and smile to others as you pass them. If you want to continue to get paid for doing very little work without any stresses of losing your job, simply smile and say a nice “Hello” in passing. No manager wants his or her temp to be the quiet loner type that creeps the rest of the office out. Don’t over talk. Never ever get involved too deeply in what should be only small talk conversation. Nobody needs to know what Barbara did last weekend with her husband, let alone does anyone in your office want to know that you woke up in the middle of the night to find your girlfriend peeing all over the floor of her bedroom after too many beers on a Saturday night. Bathrooms are your friends. If you need to go, then by all means go. Just get up and walk to the restroom. There is no timer in there. Stay there as long as you wish. Just be warned that you should never dare attempt to make conversation in a men’s room, it will creep other men out. Also, never spend too much time tidying up your appearance in the men’s room in a business casual environment. If you do, you will very quickly and silently be made fun of throughout a mass chain email that will be alluding to the fact that you are a giant dandy.

Catching Up On Your Time, Your Sleep, & Your Thinking: The copy room is not a good place to sleep. If you’re temping because you enjoy the lack of responsibility that comes with being a temp, and if you also happen to enjoy late nights full of booze and cheap women you might find that you’ll need to catch up on your sleep at times between the hours of 9AM and 5PM. Never ever think that you will be able to get away with sleeping in the copy room. Sure not too many people will use the copier in a given hour, but it is way too public to sleep in. You should sit in a toilet stall for your naps, or if you can, use this better solution, find an empty office on your floor, get boxes to cover up the open foot slots at the front of the desk that face the hallway, then close the door and fall asleep under the desk. HINT: Most commercial offices have locks that can be easily opened with either a corporate I.D. card, or a credit card – just like the movies. Simply MacGyver open the lock so that you can use the under appreciated floor space of an empty office. Turn away from the entryway. Always sit facing away from the entryway to your cubicle, unless you have a desktop that works and can only be seen by you. If you were hired only to put paperwork in order never allow the management to see what you’re doing with the papers. If you can face out a window and hold some pieces of paper in your hands to make it appear as though you are busy tidying up, this will allow for hours of uninterrupted day dreaming and pondering of life, sleeping, or give you a few hours to catch on those whittling skills of yours.

Have Fun: Keep that copier jammed. If the copier jams up in the middle of your using it, just cancel the current job to cover your tracks, and find a different copier to use. Remember that you get paid for your time, and not for the abilities that you have which might be that of knowing how to clear paper out of hot copy machines. Make the coffee in the morning. Doing this is codependent on getting to the office early. Here’s what you do, and it’s simple. Screw the coffee up. Never do anything illegal. Let me repeat that, NEVER DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL TO THE COFFEE, OR ANYONE FOR THAT MATTER!!! Simply make the coffee with only three quarters of one bag as soon as you get into the office. Everyone will pour the coffee expecting that good ole’ “Cup of Joe” only to find cups full of something that tastes like a liquefied rotten apples and announce “Some idiot made the coffee this morning, and didn’t use two bags!” - yet they will still drink the weak coffee since they need coffee in the morning, are too lazy to make and wait for a new brew, and because they are too cheap to buy their own coffee before work. Do this beginning on your second day of work, so that no one is working at full capacity, or thinking too clearly. This is a key item, and will allow more leeway if you are ever caught dozing off at your desk, since everyone else will begin to falter at work in his or her sleep patterns as well. The printer should always be clean. When you go to pick up all of your printed materials don’t waste your time and look to take whatever is only yours off of the printer, take the entire batch of paper that is on the printer, and bring them back to your desk. Find and keep what is yours, and then dispose of all the unneeded paperwork from everyone else by dropping the others into the shredder. Do this at least three times a day so that there will be a near constant flow of people wondering what’s wrong with the printer, without it being too obvious that you are what is wrong with the printer. You will get to laugh with your boyfriend or girlfriend over the phone when you both hear people in the background saying, “Why doesn’t this printer want to print my things!?!?” Take walks. Feeling bored on your workday? Get up and stretch your legs. Walk around your floor if you can. You will appear as though you are always out and about, doing a good job, you’ll be known as the busy bee, and when you get bored with walks on your floor, or if you think that some people notice that you aren’t really working and only walking, go for walks outside the building. You can walk all over the city, or hang out in big box stores such as the container store or home depot for hours and hours before anyone would look at you suspiciously. Get paid for YOUR time. An agency will ask you what you wish to make an hour. Don’t reply with the answer of a hundred million dollars, so that you would never have to work again. Give a number that seems as though it’s only slightly a crazy number to get paid per hour to write and read blogs all day long, as well as think to yourself, “Ha! I am getting “x” amount of money per hour to screw around with people AND have a good time all day.” Trust me, companies will pay it, and they will still think that they are getting a bargain per hour for a worker that will eventually play games on the internet until they have the highest rating on “Yahoo Towers”.

Job Security: Instill fear into coworkers that are full time. If you are milking one task for someone, speed through another task in five minutes, do it accurately, and completely. When you hand over your task in good standing ten minutes after receiving it and you ask, “Is the anything else that I can help you out with?” It will freak the average “I’m doing this for the kids” 9 to 5 employee out. This is a technique that should be done on the first day, this way they will assume that since you can alphabetize 85 file folders in less than 10 minutes that you can easily do their job function, and for less money. As such, these workers will never give you another task to do ever again. Don’t learn the names of those around you. As a temp no one is going to care what your name is, they will refer to you as “the temp”. As such you should not learn more than five individuals names of those who are on your floor. Oddly enough this will prove to be a strong part of your personality, and will instill into you respect from your coworkers. Remember “Hey you” works great as a warm hello when said softly, and with a smile by a temp. Don’t dance in your cube. Even if you are the best and fastest worker around, if you are spotted dancing by a coworker in your cube they will tell everyone on the floor to walk past your cube to see you dancing. By doing this you will have lost all respect and fear from your average coworkers. Just for the record, waving two fingers at the screen of your computer while listening to your IPOD constitutes dancing, and you will forever be made fun of behind your back as the dancing temp. Play dumb. If the shit hits the fan you need to know how to cover your bases. Figure out a good look for your face. One that conveys the senses of innocence and of being completely lost into the eyes of whoever found that you were the one that has been screwing up. You should practice in the mirror at home before you begin temping. They feel sorry for your mistake given that you are a temp, but don’t let them catch you in too many of these moments, for they will catch on eventually. If you can’t figure out how to make a good face like that, just blame it the other temp. If there is no other temp, explain that you thought you had done the work correctly, and that you were in such a rush to get all the work done within eight hours so that you wouldn’t go into overtime. Even though it would be a lie your manager will appreciate your dedication, and will eventually just hire another temp from your agency.

Got it all? Good, now go out, spread your wings, and fly yourself away to the freedom of being a temp.

P.S. I had been thinking of spilling those secrets for a while now, and I can only hope that nothing bad happens to me such as when a magician spills the secrets of the trade.