Temping has a new face

When we first arrived back in Texas, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to temp. I liked the idea of working for a company for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, and then moving on. Temping seemed to offer a perpetual honeymoon with any employer, that shiny new period when work is interesting, people are polite, and office politics and company viability aren’t things you have to deal with.

To my dismay, I discovered that temping, as I defined it, no longer existed. Instead of interviewing with the temp company and then being sent out on assignment, I found that most jobs being offered were temp to hire. Naturally, since they were looking for a long term employee, those companies wanted someone with more experience and background than I had. I have plenty of experience and background, but it’s all language skills and legal-niche experience and background; there just aren’t all that many legal firms looking to hire an estate planning paralegal on a temporary basis. As you would expect, nobody called. What to do?

A friend of mine called me about online work and directed me to a site called oDesk. That’s where all the temps had gone - online! Since finding oDesk, I have also found a site called Elance, and I’m sure there are others. To get started, I posted a profile, set an hourly rate, and started scouring the jobs listing. Jobs were listed in every sort of category. Thankfully, “technical writing” was one of them!

Potential employers from all parts of the globe post job notices for everything from copywriting to SEO to blog posting. The jobs are short term, long term, and everything in between. Most of the pay rates are laughable (paying less than $5 an hour, and obviously targeted to the third world) and some of the job descriptions are questionable, but there are enough reasonable offers to keep me fairly busy.

As time goes on, I am accumulating a whole new set of skills – not my work skills, but my skills in managing my time and dealing with employers from all walks of life. Many of my clients speak shaky English (granted, they speak much better English than I speak Arabic or Russian, etc.) and have different mores. I have made lots of mistakes, but I learn from each mistake. I am learning not to take rejection personally (I hit on about 1 out of every 20 applications) and I am learning what new skills are in demand.

I like working online. There are some drawbacks, like the fact that my office is the boat cabin, and the fact that I spend one to three hours a day applying for jobs rather than working. But it’s great to be temping, just as I expected.