Chirpy water torture

I begin, on Tuesday, a new piece of temporary employment for a company named something along the lines of “Farming Billing Solutions” (I’m sure I will correct this when I know what it actually is). Right, Rangy, this better be good.

Well, I secured this invaluable piece of journalistic potential through Office Angels, a temping agency with a colour scheme derived from the image of a painted and subsequently squashed Jodie Marsh. Pink, basically.

Now, all props where it’s due right, because I’ll be honest, the way I normally feel when I enter most temping agencies ranges from the suicidal to the murderous. And that’s quite some range. From self-loathing, to the loathing of any temping agency worker; from the total and utter repression and denial of anything even vaguely myself, to the total and utter loathing of anything that reminds me of a temping agency.

Ok, not very varied, but there’s a breadth there.

Prior to this, an amusing time spent in a job centre printing out “today’s new jobs” while trying not to look menacing or non-conforming to an entire nightclub’s worth of security guards. I swear to god, either everyone working in the Newcastle branch of Job Centre Plus is a security guard or has at some time worked as a security guard, or perhaps had a brief spell fighting security guards. I dunno, they all looked pretty hard (especially the women) and seemed to be doing nothing other than standing around, fiddling with walkie talkies, protecting the building from a potential attack of jobseeking, jobless, job-o-philes who probably, I dunno, want a job.

So, once "today’s jobs" were printed I approached one of the loitering female security staff and asked what the hell I was supposed to do next. She pointed me to three ‘American jail’ style telephones hanging off a wall and said that I could call the relevant company/department of the Job Centre from their 'free phones'. She said the last bit like I was supposed to be dead grateful. It’s weird, I was actually thinking how I was quite low on free minutes and I’d be up for borrowing a phone.

Now I get it. That’s why everyone there is a frightening member of the door staff fraternity, it’s because they don’t want every cracked-up mongrel using their phones to buy smack onions.

Anyway, a brief spell of tongue-tied embarrassment was spent on the jail phone while I, stuttering, tried to persuade the chirpy lady at Office Angels that I would be an excellent employee at what is bound to turn out to be nothing more than a glorified (or, agricultural) call centre. This conversation was conducted with the background sound of withered, ex-policemen arguing with drug addicts at the door about the cost of payphones.

Then to Office Angels, where a gruelling half hour was spent filling in forms on a soft, womb-shaped chair while a chirpy woman kept walking towards me, smiling, waiting for me to stand up before saying, “Actually, it’s ok, sit down again.” Weirdo.

Now for the test. To be a proper Office Angels employee (which yes, includes paid holidays, a pension and a free lunch on a Friday) I had to complete a spelling test.
Which of the following is correct:

a) aggregate
b) agregate
c) agrogate or
d) aggggregoat

Now, as I’m composing this blog in Microsoft Word, it’s fairly clear which one is correct (the one not underlined in red). And when you’re there, it’s fairly fucking obvious which one is correct too - because it’s the one that isn’t spelt wrong. Well, the chirpy woman seemed quite chuffed with my performance, so I tried to choke back my bitter disappointment when she read me my score. Ninety percent. Ouch. Which ones did I get wrong? Seriously.

Then I had a typing/accuracy test where I had to copy names, addresses and phone numbers printed at the top of the screen (are you still following this?) to the space at the bottom of the screen. Apparently I did “excellently” on this task, though I know for a fact I made AT LEAST ONE error because I was about to correct it when my time ran up. That was also a cruel moment.

Last, and most horrifying was an arithmetic test. I remember feeling suddenly quite far away from home when I saw it was to contain twenty questions in ten minutes. Other than add up money, I haven’t used that part of my brain since my statistics paper for my Psychology A Level. And that was piss easy and our teacher gave us all the answers anyway.

Now, this arithmetic task was hard. Imagine someone saying to you, “Persephone, what’s 367.2 – 58.9 / 3.4?” You, Persephone, would probably be a clever dick and get your flip-top mobile out, input the numbers and give the geek who was asking an answer within 30 seconds. However, with no mobile phone, pen or paper (as if that would have helped) present and with four answers from which to choose, I felt a little out of my depth. The multiple choice element would, I suppose, have been ok had not all of the answers been alarmingly similar.

The answers:

a) 90.6911
b) 90.7911
c) 91.6912 or
d) 90.8

Shit! I’m looking at the unforgiving clock telling it’s unforgiving time. Ummm…c)? I don’t fucking know! You’d need autism to deal with this shit. I’m just not ready to commit to that. For a temp job? I’m not Mark Haddon.

So, ten minutes, and a lot of sweat later, I’m leaning back on the office furniture, feeling quite ready for a pint when the chirpy lady approaches me, whips out this enormous Polaroid Camera and takes a picture of me, red-faced, hunched and recoiling from this horrible flashing embarrassment.

She then looks at me like I'm a madman for a few confusing and awkward moments, before asking me to stand and join her in the office. Grrr.

I thought I’d regain some strength and make sure my hands weren’t still sweaty in case I had to shake hands again, so I excused myself for a moment and went to the toilet.

Nice I suppose, if you like tiles.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Hmm, still got the kind of hair that inspires leisure-time confidence and business-time smirking. Maybe if I fiddle with this bit here and do a bit here. Hmm, no, I’d still smirk if I saw myself in this ridiculous shirt with this ludicrous tie and this frankly inappropriate sack of wrestling dust snakes on my head. Well, I’d better wash my hands now then, for the reasons detailed above. Ok, will do, I’ll just press the little innocent button by the sink that makes the nice little stream of PPPPPPTTTTTHHHHHHHH!

FUCK! My entire middle riffed area is covered in what could never be construed as a conspicuous stain. It was clearly the stain of a fucking tap pissing all over my groin, and not the guilty stain of myself pissing at an impossible angle all over my groin. I moved away, waiting for the tap to stop its incessant gushing before leaning over from the side to try a different tap – I still hadn’t achieved my goal of hand-sweat-removal after all.

Ok, sorted.

“Are your taps some kind of aptitude test?” I offered, pathetically, desperate for a laugh or some comment of recognition. I got a little laugh, and I managed to balance my CV over my lap for the remainder of the interview. Crisis aversion.

Just as I was about to leave, bewildered, my brain aching and a little confused, the chirpy one said I had a job involving farmers, to start on Tuesday, could I get to Elswick?

Ummm…yeah, ok. Where’s Elswick?

Here’s a map, give us a call if there’s a problem.

And that was it.

So, there you go, I’ve got a job somehow involving telephones and farmers. I keep imagining/hoping it will be in some kind of small, greenhouse-style office surrounded by plants, bearded, bespectacled men in brown cords, and stained coffee cups with agricultural jokes on the side.

However, given a moment of mature reflection, I’m terrified that it’s going to involve some kind of debt collection tactic whereby I ring up a country bumpkin and demand ten thousand pounds. From a horrible grey high rise office block, next to a concrete playground.

All is conjecture for now.