Turkeyherding

My assignment was in a high rise building in Schaumburg, and it was my third assignment with that company, though my last two had been in another location. The company had rented a large amount of space in this building and I reported to work in their main reception area, which was on the top floor.  

I was assigned a workstation on the third floor. My department handled international shipments of food products, and I was there to assist with a seasonal shipment. I was the only temp in a department of about 8 people.

The company was in the process of reducing their office space within the building. They occupied about 6 separate floors in the building, but most of the floors consisted of empty workstations. On the floor I worked on, there were approximately 100 unoccupied workstations from people who had been laid off or moved to another location.

My specific workstation was near the door, and clustered with others in my department. I was told that there would be a move to the top floor in a few weeks. My computer was not a recent model. During one of my breaks, I wandered around the unused cubicles, and discovered that virtually all of the computers were on—and had been since the office had been vacated. I looked over a couple, and discovered several that were better then the one I was using. I attempted to log in on a high end workstation, but was unable to do so.

I ended up switching my assigned computer with one that was much better without anyone noticing. I also went around and turned off every unused computer I found—and I was surprised that no one else had thought to do so.My tasks were explained to me by both my supervisor and several coworkers. Mostly they involved preparing shipping documents in several online systems, as well as updating spreadsheets and faxing documents. I was given Office Professional, and transferred several spreadsheets into Access applications for my own personal use. I also designed a Excel application for preparing fax cover sheets, also for my personal use, though my supervisor saw what I had done, and later asked me to design several for her use.

Work was slow at first. I was hired to assist shipping turkeys, which needed to arrive in the weeks preceding thanksgiving. For the first several weeks, I found myself with a lot of idle time, which caused me to quickly resent the assignment.

One day, employees from the corporate IT department went through the floors recovering computers. Several days later the department was moved to the top floor. There I was assigned a more open cubicle, which even had me identified by name. A small lunchroom was nearby, which featured large windows looking east.

The atmosphere in the office was very subdued. The company had a round of layoffs a month or so prior to my assignment and people seemed to be in fear of additional layoffs. Employees were reluctant to appear as anything other then hard working, and everyone wore serious expressions. I noticed an interesting fashion quirk—most of the men were fond of wearing polo type shirts with white crew t-shirts underneath. Several employees wore this combination exclusively.

At one point during my assignment, an employee in another location received one of those ‘Send this email to everyone you know and Bill Gates will give them $200’ emails. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for his desire to help his fellow employees. He kindly forwarded it to the ‘all’ address.

When I came in to work, I was told that email was down due to a virus. I didn’t receive any email until around 3 pm, which was finally the aforementioned Gates email, and associated replies. It took almost three days before email was returned to normal.

Work came in, and I found myself part of a team dedicated to moving turkeys. I participated in several conference calls, and established communications with the shipping agents, as well as the company representatives in the receiving location.  Soon I was shipping several container loads of turkey a day.

I also was shown the company’s new SAP tracking system, an unwieldy monster written in .net, and was trained in making updates. I did make some updates, and worked to expand my knowledge of the system, but was unable to do much work because I was never officially given access. I made an effort to gaining access, even to the extent of meeting with the department head, who told me that I didn’t need it. At that point I realized that they would not offer me a permanent position.

One day the turkeys ran out. It happened during a conference call, and the company employee who was providing me the product was talking about filling a couple of orders, but having to get them from some different lots. Then the leader of the call started questioning what was left—and then said that we had shipped all that we were supposed to.Over the next two weeks I spent watching my turkeys make their way. At one point a hurricane interfered with deliveries, and I had to juggle some paperwork.

As the last shipments were received, I was assigned a variety of smaller tasks. I shifted several files around, and prepared items for storage. Once that was completed, my supervisor told me it was time to go.Since then, the agency that placed me with that company ceased operations.