Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-09-17 - 8:23 a.m.

Humbled Again

I registered with a temp agency last week, to see if I could pick up some hours as a clerical temp. It's kind of like getting a job, but not - just the level of commitment I always seem ready for.

Anyhow, I called in this morning, as instructed. The woman tells me, "I have something for a few days as a receptionist - have you been a receptionist?"

I tell her truthfully, "No, I haven't."

"Well, then, you wouldn't be qualified for that. They want someone with experience."

Ouch. I don't even WANT to be a receptionist, but I can't stand being told I'm not qualified for it. "I spent ten years in management for Famous High Tech Company, I think I could manage a few days of reception."

"They said experienced. It's not an easy job, you know!"

Oh, shit. Maybe I don't have the brains to be a receptionist. Because I have failed to recognize that the women I am TALKING to is probably a receptionist, and I have just insulted her entire honorable profession, and her personally, by implying that a baboon could do her job. Yup. No brains.

Once, in my late teens, I applied for a job with the Round Table Pizza. It was a back room job, minimum wage, doing food prep.

They didn't hire me. Told me, "You don't have the right people skills for us."

I carried that around for YEARS. Throughout my entire successful career in supervision and management, through every card or letter of thanks I got from an employee and every performance review I got complimenting my people skills. I wanted to drive through the front window of the Round Table yelling, "You were WRONG! Fucking WRONG!! I have GREAT people skills!! You missed hiring the most people-oriented pepper-chopper in the world!" I wanted to go pizzal.

Okay, I'm over it now. I have magnanimously forgiven Round Table, each and every franchise, for what they said about me. I'm not saying that if that pizza manager ever came around now asking ME for a job, that I'd be able to set it aside. I'm not saying I've FORGOTTEN. I'm only saying that I can eat pizza again, even if it isn't Round Table.

I wonder if Round Table ButtHead is now working for this temp agency.

I guess I am really am denigrating a receptionist's position, though, because I realize I would have felt better if the woman had said, "Oh, look here, we have a short assignment as a relief astrophysicist. Do you have any experience in that field?" Then I would have been able to say, "Oh no, I don't think I'd be so very good at that - I'm really more of a people person," and I would have gotten off the phone happy. But there is something that smarts about being told I'm not qualified to stand in as a receptionist.

Okay - so if you're a receptionist, please, I DO know that you have an important job, and I'm not really trying to say a baboon could do it - not even a baboon with management experience. I DO know that you do more than snap your gum and take personal phone calls on company time; I even KNOW receptionists, personally, I would let them live in my neighborhood, I would send my kids to school with their kids, I would have them over to dinner. Some of my best FRIENDS, really. This is not a receptionist vendetta, here.

I still think I could have done the job.

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