A new temp — Scott — began working for us Monday as a temporary editor to help out with the plagiarism re-write project. Yesterday Kali moved him off that project and essentially gave him to Stephen for the Shakespeare textbook. The reason was simply that Kali wasn’t satisfied with Scott’s work. And for good reason — the poor guy has never even copyedited! Kali asked for someone with editing experience (I overheard her phone conversation — as did a lot of other people I would imagine, especially Matt, sitting right across from her) and they sent someone without even any copyediting experience. That put everyone in an awkward situation, and I felt most sorry for Scott. I’d feel like such a boob if something like that happened to me. Being a temp is demeaning enough — having something like that happen to you must be horrid. Of course Kali tried to explain that it’s simply that he doesn’t have the skills we need, but I’m sure it’s difficult not to take that as an indictment of one’s general skill level.

I looked at some of his work, though — and it was, quite honestly, awful. I think he might have been more than a little nervous being given a job doing something he’d never done before, and he might have thought that just changing some words around might do the trick. It seems to make sense. The bad thing is, they were worse after he was done with them. It made me realize how much my editing skills have improved since I began working there. At least that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is to say that my ability to conform to Kali’s editorial preferences, which, no matter what she says, are somewhat subjective.

All this makes me wonder about temp agencies. Some of them claim to specialize in “technical” placement, or in this kind or that kind of placement, but I wonder how many of them really do. Certainly someone who places computer programmers (as if there are any of those who are out of work and have to scrounge around for work through a temp agency) or nurses doesn’t just send anyone to any assignment, but others — Professional Staffing Group, for example. I don’t know. I would say there is a lot of pressure inside those places to get new accounts and to send people to those jobs. And as such, I would imagine that a lot of unqualified people get sent to various places. Yet most of the time an intelligent person can probably bluff her way through a lack of particular experience. I, for example, had never worked reception, but I managed. On the other hand, there’s a world of difference between reception and editing, and I guess most of the placements for temps are lower-level things like that.

Another interesting office development — Kali called me on getting Luis to help out with my personal computer. She said it was inappropriate, but didn’t give me too much flack about it. I defended myself as best I could, but I forgot one minor thing — something I realized only last night. I never asked him to help me. I simply described to him my problem at home and asked if he had any ideas as to what happened. He’s the one who offered to look at it; he’s the one who suggested I bring it in. So it’s not like I said, “Hey, I’m having problems with my computer. I’ll bring it in tomorrow and I’d like you to look at it.” I would never do something like that. Anyway, I was left wondering what exactly I’d done wrong. Was it that I brought it to the office? Or was it that he did anything at all for me? Am I supposed to separate completely my personal and professional lives? DLI employees socialize in a non-work setting; why can’t we ask for each other’s help in a non-work setting? Or rather, offer to help each other? I’m a little confused about that. Was it wrong of me to ask Marlon to help me move? Certainly they wouldn’t say that. So what’s the difference between Marlon helping me and Luis helping? There are two that I can see. First, Luis used his professional knowledge to help with a personal problem, and that was certainly not the case with Marlon, who applied brute strength and patience alone. Second, the physical location of the assistance was the office. Given those to differences, the only one that could have been meaningful was the non-personal location. Hence if he’d come to my house and looked at the computer then they would have no room to talk. So I guess I learned something new about office politics/protocol. (Mary asked him to look at her laptop as well — I wonder if she got a bullocking. I would ask her about it, but it might lead to more trouble — after all, if you can get fired for asking fellow employees about their salary you could certainly at least get talked to for asking whether they got in trouble with a supervisor . . . and I’m only being half jocular here.)

Today my parents arrive. They’re only staying through Monday, though — four days, essentially. I thought they’d be staying longer, but I guess not. They were only going to stay through Sunday! Over twenty-eight hours of driving for three days! That’s twenty-eight hours of driving for seventy-two hours of time her, with at least twenty-four of it being spent sleeping! Chhavi called them back and talked them into staying one more day. I tried, but I couldn’t. I didn’t really try too hard, though. Why? I just felt a little awkward pushing for something that might cause them a bit of discomfort because of the cats — they’re reluctant to ask anyone to come over and feed them. Anyway, Chhav got an extra day out of them, so they’ll have a little more time here. Now the question is, what do we do?