2004-01-14 - 4:22 p.m.

Adecco

I started working for Adecco just about eight years ago. It was the best temp agency I had ever worked for, because it provided benefits, like health insurance, paid holidays, and vacation pay. The assignments were usually long-term and, in fact, I can probably count on my fingers the companies I worked for over the first five years.

When I went to part time, some of the benefits disappeared, because one needed a minimum number of hours worked for paid holidays and vacations. That was okay; I knew it was coming, and I had a specific reason for not wanting a full time-job just then.

I became really disillusioned after they “terminated” me. It seemed to show really poor management, at least out of the office that had been placing me. The manager of one of the newer offices – who knew me from before, as well as always having handled Bosslawyer’s account – placed me here a couple of months later. The manager of the old office has gone to work elsewhere, and from what we can tell, the company just isn’t the same. It has been acquiring smaller companies, and maybe it’s just gotten too big for its own britches.

Tuesday’s business page had an Associated Press story about the problems the company is having. It took me awhile to find the story online. I still can’t tell whether there is some serious management tomfoolery going on.

The entire practice of temporary employment has undergone a great deal of change over the past twenty years or so. As a Kelly Girl, I often worked just one day in places where someone was needed to cover the phones or type a few letters. Nowadays a company will use some sort of voice mail if telephone coverage is important. A skilled typist needn’t be called in if there’s anyone around who can produce a document out of a computer, and that’s so dumbed down that unskilled people seem to do it well enough. So temp agencies earn most of their money in two ways.

It is occasionally cost-effective to hire temporary help for special projects, rather than pull people away from their usual responsibilities. (Example: one place I worked needed someone to mail out their W-2 forms – about 800 of them. My own office was not busy and I did their mailing, in half the time it would have taken outsiders to do it – not just because I knew what was needed. I happen to have lots of experience at mailings!) I pointed out to the agency that special projects are a good selling point, especially if you can provide a skilled worker to do it in less time. They don’t advertise that.

The other way a temp agency can earn money is to have clients like Bosslawyer. He always needs somebody, because he can’t type and because he likes to have his calls screened. (Although he does use voice mail.) What he doesn’t want is the hassle of being an employer, keeping records of employment and social security taxes and so forth. Long-term assignments are easy money for a temp agency, because the agency has to check out client and associate only once. In Bosslawyer’s case, it’s easier than that; if he finds workers himself, he sends them over to sign up with the agency. All they have to do is paperwork.

Not only that, he just settled a case big enough to pay up his old bills. They don’t know how lucky they are!

In other “news,” it’s too cold to go outdoors today, but I went. It was finally time for my physical, which was supposed to be last September. Did the usual, seem to be in good shape, walked out with a pile of papers for lab work and the promise to set me up with specialists to look into a few other things…like my sit-upon.

And then I went to the supermarket on my way home, because we don't know how much snow we're going to have and heaven forbid that we run out of milk for Husband's coffee. Got a walk in, anyhow.

Current Reading: Mr. Timothy -- Louis Bayard
Good Diary Today:
From the Old Folks' Radio: "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" -- Elvis Presley

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