TEMP.tation is a concise, humorous book about "temping" that offers important tips to humanize a profession which often treats workers as if they aren't quite real people. It offers warm reassurances to those people who have no work experience at all, as well as to those reentering the workforce who may be intimated by their lack of computer skills. It shows how to turn now-and-then assignments into a permanent career and provides a helping helping of hilarious work-related anecdotes.
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Review
This little book is a delightful mixture of how-to manual and humorous memoir. The author shares extensive advice about how to function as a temp (temporary employee) in an office environment. The tips and advice are supported by anecdotes and examples, plus more than two dozen very cute cartoons by Mark Steele.
The first half of the book is devoted to three fundamental questions:
1.Why should anyone take up work as a temp? 2.What can one do to find work as a temp? 3.How can one survive and thrive working as a temp?
The first question is an interesting one. Personally, I worked nights as a temp in my high school years, but never considered it as a possible career. However, Ms. Feltman makes a pretty convincing case that "temping" has significant good points, among them mobility, breadth of experience, and flexibility.
As for finding work as a temp, the book includes valuable advice about how to find a temp agency, assess the agency's quality, and make a good impression. The mechanics and conventions of working as a temp are rather different than working as a traditional employee. The chapter entitled "Sticking that Toe in the Water" walks through some of the potential pitfalls for new temps, and includes some very insightful tips. The most valuable aspect of the first half of the book is its positive tone. Working as a temp is usually hard work, and the author doesn't try to deny that, but the prose is unfailingly upbeat and encouraging. For anybody about to begin work as a temp, this kind of moral support could be very helpful.
The second part of the book is less structured than the first; it is an informal melange of nostalgia, cautionary tales, and suggestions. This part will probably evoke chuckles from experienced career office workers, but could be very valuable for novices (even those that aren't temps). My favorite part of this section is "The Temp's Survival Kit", a short chapter about what to pack in a kit for that first day on the job.
It is a fact of life that, even in the 90s, most temps are women and most temp jobs are clerical or secretarial. This is Ms. Feltman's background, and much of the book is devoted specifically to it. Of course, there are other kinds of temp work, but Ms. Feltman can hardly be blamed for writing about what she knows best. In the end, her experience, insight, and wit make TEMP.tation a charming and potentially very helpful book. -- Ziring Book Reviews for June - September, 1999
From the Publisher
Although some media coverage has been given to temporary employment issues, journalists usually cover the story from the perspective of business owners. Very little information has been provided for the USA's three million temporary workers to prepare them for the issues they will face. Irrepressible author Carol Feltman gently chides employers - and offers helpful tips and warm reassurance to those reentering the work force who may be intimated by limited computer skills.
Having gone on a wide variety of temporary assignments lasting from 30 minutes to 30 months, Carol Feltman did it all as a temporary office worker in companies, large and small. She saw it all and lays it out for all who are thinking about starting down the same path. She tells how to get off on the right foot with an agency and with a client, when to duck, and when and how to leave.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
COMP.ulsive and IMP.ractical Advice for TEMPs,
By "seanreynolds" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
This review is from: TEMP.tation: An Introduction to Busyness Management (Paperback)
I picked up this book because I used to be a temp, and I can't even imagine the mindset of a person who would choose that as a career path, rather than a between-gigs wage-haven. Well, that and the cover illustration of the author looked like Fran Drescher on benzedrine.I managed to bang out the bulk of the book on a single 45-minute train-ride, and once you get past the 'humorous' cartoons and the biographical filler, there's just not much there of any practical use. Her advice seems to be an odd amalgam of 1990's office politicking bred with 1950's polite society mores. If I had been following her advice in my temping days, I wouldn't have lasted half a day in most of those jobs. The #1 rule of temping is to get the job they hired you for done, and #1a is to not rock the boat. Filling out detailed work logs or carrying around a tote bag full of his or her own office supplies might make a temp feel empowered and self-important, but it sure won't keep him or her employed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A sad little book.,
By A Customer
This review is from: TEMP.tation: An Introduction to Busyness Management (Paperback)
Carol Feltman is racist. Don't buy her book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
TEMP.ting to ...,
By Jane (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: TEMP.tation: An Introduction to Busyness Management (Paperback)
.... I've done a bit of temp work, and this ...is waaaaaaay over the top. job sheets?? write down every single thing your asked to do, the time you were asked, the time you completed it?A hand made tapestry saying you smoke and i croak? I dont smoke personally, but no one likes a smart [aleck]Anti Smoking crusader. working within a 5 kilometer radius and no further, [could be] burning your own bridges....
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