Just another day at the (temporary) office

In this downturned economy, if you're also downsized there's unemployment, general government assistance and TEMPING. I'm not sure how it is that you are placed in jobs and the agencies don't take money out of your paycheck but alas, I sit here at a marketing and public relations company in San Francisco, making $13/ hour to connect phone calls and inform people they have packages.

I'm glad I'll be paying off my $100,000 education for the next two decades. Does everyone know about this? How come everyone I know isn't temping? You can choose when and where you want to work.

Oh yea, the downside? You're fleeting and no one knows your name and you have no one to go to lunch with. It's lonely and slightly degrading if you're egotistical, and there are no challenges here. So lackluster work for the time being vs. living in a cardboard box?

Update: I was basically fired from my first temp job three days into a five day week because if the following situation. I scheduled a phone screening for a public relations job at noon thinking I could take my lunch from 11:55 - 12:45. My presence was never crucial until, of course, at 11:58 a client enters the building and needs change for $3. The permanent girl is just getting back from lunch but has disappeared so my supervisor Jonathan asks me to go make change for the man. Besides the fact I didn't even know where to do that, I didn't have the time to. I told him no, that Sarah would be back immediately and that I had to take a phone call at noon for an interview.

The supervisor rudely mocks me in front of the gentlemen seeking change and says "this is the temp, she'll be done tomorrow afternoon."

When I arrived this morning, supposedly my last day, I discover I am replaced by another temp. I call the agency and my case worker tells me they had feedback for me that I had a great personality but seemed uninterested in the position.

Obviously my luck that the one time they need me to do something I couldn't and I got fired because of it.