Anything you could grasp you could easily pass to the ashtray
I am startled to find that I have developed a Pavlov’s Dog-type reaction to hearing the ring tone on my phone. I first developed this nervous tic about a year ago, when L. would incessantly call my number day and night. Hearing the phone would create a wave of nauseous panic so thick that I would actually find myself flinching a bit. A steady diet of avoidance thereafter was enough to get back the courage to answer phone calls again, thinking it would not be her. But here, in the Ferris Bueller’s phase of my unemployment situation, it is reoccurring ten fold. The agency unrelentingly calls upwards of 3 times a day now. Additionally, they have taken to writing me emails upon not responding to their calls, which only goes to further my totally cringing and subservient nature. “Where have you been?” Sarah wants to know when I finally get around to calling them back. “Yeah, well, uh, I’ve been kind of I’ll,” I tell them. We are graceful—courteous almost—to one another on the phone, while behind the scenes we have taken up arms. They have hour-long meetings on how to break down the resistant and unemployed-insured employee’s will, with PowerPoint set ups and tactical demonstrations. Who could say what they’re doing?

The insanity reaches a crescendo today, when I find myself temporarily changing the ring tone on my phone so as to not have the nervous reaction. Things have gone too far, clearly. I am so busy with my defense strategy all day that it has become a full time job, and while it does come with a pretty spiffy benefits package, I have had enough. I will do anything. Just leave me alone, man. “What have you got?” I ask, finally calling her back. Working for the temp agency is a lot like reaching your hand into a gigantic jar of jellybeans and almost always coming out with the kind you didn’t really want. I’ve worked some OK jobs through temp, but mostly I hate jellybeans. “How do you feel about doing envelope work in an administrative setting?” she asks. A crusty kernel, it has revealed. I pop it into my mouth anyway. Because fuck it, I’ve run out of excuses, and my stomach is all upset.