A few more temps were laid off at work today. Luckily myself, and a couple of others who I've got to know, were okay this time - but I have a feeling it won't last more than two or three more weeks. Which is okay. I mean, it's temp work - being temporary is pretty much implied in the title - but it seems a shame to be almost over just as I've settled into it and got to know a few people. And it seems quite harrowing when some people are let go, and you can't help but think, "I'm glad I'm okay", even though you feel sorry for those having to leave.
But as we get closer to the end of the project, and the workload gets lower, people will inevitably continue to be let go, or 'culled', as the term has become amongst the remaining few of us. It raises the unenviable thought of workers no longer required being led out the back and shot against a wall. Whenever this is said I get an uneasy feeling I'm going to walk out into the car park and see burning stacks of temporary workers smoking high into the sky.
I think I prefer to see it as more like a series of 'The X-Factor', where, as the weeks go on, we are gradually voted off until the end of the project when someone will be crowned the 'Ultimate Temp', and receive the fantastic prize of gaining maybe a couple of extra days pay than anybody else. Week by week you are assessed as to your office skills, efficiency, punctuality and general likeability by a panel of judges consisting of senior management and permanent staff.
Tim is still there too, and as far as he is concerned, deservedly so. On the way out he managed a little nod and a sly grin to me, "Still here then, Tom?", in a smarmy way that suggested he thought I probably wouldn't be. Perhaps we will both make the final round. He will be the Olly Murs to my.....erm.......some other bloke I guess. I don't really watch X-Factor.
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