Today I reached what is the goal of all temp workers. During my entire workday I did no work at all -- zero. I even sneaked out early, still retaining, on paper, my "eight hours." I drank coffee, walked around, talked to other workers, printed up return address labels for the zine, made some zine-related calls, wrote several lengthy letters to friends. It was nice. There have been many days in the past where I've done almost no work, but this was probably the first when I really did nothing at all.

And in the afternoon, I left work at 3:30 to attend a tryout for "The Weakest Link," a TV game show. I had heard of the show but I hadn't seen it. I won't be seeing it in the future because I've since caught a few minutes of it, and it doesn't look like something that would interest me.

•

I was on the way to work one morning, sitting on the train.

"They're holding auditions for 'The Weakest Link' today at noon; you should go down there and try-out," she said.

"What are the questions like on the show -- are they hard? Is it like Jeopardy?" I said.

"I don't think so. There was one the other night: What are the five highest mountains in the world..."

"I wouldn't know that. How much money can you win?"

"I don't know."

"It has to be pretty good....We could use that money to take a trip to Germany."

"Yeah, that's a great idea...O.K., now you go down there and take the test, and I'm going to make the travel arrangements."

I started fantasizing about raking in the cash on The Weakest Link and taking the trip to Germany with my girl.

•

During the lunch-time of my slacking temp-day I walked down to the hotel where the auditions were taking place and took a number from a guy at a table. "That will get you into the three o'clock group," he said, "The test is an hour and a half."

I went back to work, came back to the hotel at three. Sat down for a few minutes, got up, asked when everything was happening. "We're going to get people together around 3:30 and go in at four," the guy said.

I left, went back to work and came back again at 3:40. People were scattered around the room waiting. Some looked like they had been there for a long time. They were reading, sleeping, holding babies. A girl who had been waiting there earlier smiled at me. Dirty blond, thirty eight, half-decent. She pulled out a cellular phone, started talking. I talked to no one. People drifted in.

A guy who looked like Bruce Willis came in with an Asian guy, sat down near the girl. The guys talked -- mostly Bruce. I caught words here and there like "product launch..." Bruce talked and joked, made remarks about people who were coming in, and eventually started talking to the girl. The jokes weren't funny. The girl laughed.

We were supposed to be let in at four o'clock, but it was 4:20 before we entered the room. This was the first of several long waits. We sat at folding tables facing one direction. A guy addressed us -- young, black, dreadlocks, good looking, muscles bulging through his tight shirt. Didn't like him immediately -- he was cheerleading, getting us all pumped up, working the crowd -- a real public relations man. Things were looking to be tedious.

We had numbered name tags stuck to our chests. One by one he called the numbers, and had us stand up to tell everyone our name, where we were from, and what we did for a living. This sucked -- person after person standing up -- nearly 100 of us. Goddamn boring. We filled out applications during this time. Many stood up and tried to be entertaining or funny with their answers, and all came across like the stiff, unfunny game show contestants on TV. During this I realized, as cheerleader guy jotted notes down on a pad, that this introduction phase was probably a big part of the "test," -- if not the only one. On and on this dragged without end.

Everyone had spoken. The "Link" people were milling about. I wondered what was next. Then they suddenly asked for volunteers. "Who wants to be on TV?" he shouted. This caught me off guard, because I was thinking the being-on-TV part was the least attractive aspect of the whole thing. Lots of hands shot up, but not everyone's, not mine right away either. They picked about eight people to go do something in front of the camera, answer questions or something. I thought everyone would take turns doing this but I was wrong. To kill time while that group did their thing, Leader Guy chatted the room up for a while longer. People asked him stupid questions about the show.

There was more waiting -- for the chosen group of people to return. Then we all took the written test, my favorite part, the part we had been waiting for -- twenty questions dictated by cheerleader guy. Some were easy, some were difficult. When those were handed in, there was another waiting period -- about 20 minutes -- during which time they were supposedly scoring the tests, but were more likely inspecting those from the folks they had already chosen -- to make sure they hadn't made a real mistake and picked someone who was good in front of a camera, but who knew nothing at all.

Finally they announced the nine chosen ones, asked them to stick around, and dismissed the rest of us. People seemed bummed. I didn't give a flying shit about this TV show, and even I felt the slight rejection -- I imagine some of them must have been mildly crushed. I felt bad for the people who had come long distances, who had taken off work, who maybe thought if they just put forth enough effort they would be able to get on the show.

It was around 6:30. I wanted to go home and get something to eat.

The next morning I inquired around the 'hood that is my cube. The boss hadn't come around the previous afternoon -- I was in the clear. I set about finding new sources of slack with which to fill the day.

 

 

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