And so 2 weeks until I start back at the restaurant (the one of infamy, of so many derisive posts) - a 2 month contract to replace the nephew who has to return to Italy to renew his work permit. Temporary Work Permit, as he's a Temporary Foreign Worker.
2 Weeks of unbudgeted unemployment, a bum leg on the mend, but I've got $5.00 in my pocket and need work, I head to Temps.
There are no familiar faces behind the counter, the receptionists all new, I'm there by 7:00 AM, sign in, there's perhaps 50 other men there.
Eavesdropping - work is hard to come by, most of these guys are only getting half days unloading trucks, "swamping", they're pissed. The same men as always, or not the same, but in all groups there are patterns...One, perhaps the brightest looking of the lot, (he's shaved this week) is making tiny notes on a post it and storing under the table, tiny, minute handwriting. I should have brought a notebook. They're all watching the TV.
Time passes, few jobs are coming in, people wait, they've got nothing but time. Our tables are close to the TV, the news, the same as always, murder, assault, and grim news for the economy, followed up with a chaser on a surgeon who's built a "bionic eye", then the human interest. A magician does a trick, lowers a rope into a bag, the rope magically knots itself around a card the presenter picked earlier.
Cribbed Notes has a theory, the bag is too small, the cards weren't mixed up properly. He knows how he did it.
"But how did he get the rope to tie itself around the card?" I ask.
He's puzzled. He hadn't thought about that, then explains that he could figure it out if he could see inside the bag.
Another temp is telling anyone who will listen that he just needs to buy the best computer going, 8 GB Ram minimum, and he'll program an app and sell it for 99 cents, expects to make millions. There was this kid in the states, 14 years old, made a dumb game that has penguins off collecting eggs, he made $4 million dollars in 3 weeks, he can do better than some dumb game with penguins...
The crowd is thinning, people are giving up. It's time for me as well, 8:30, I give up, this is the first time I've been here and not gotten work, but from the people here I can guess that I'm close to last on the list, as I leave to drive home the brakes fail completely, a bit edgy, a few pumps and they're back, but I've been meaning to look at them and that's the candle under my ass...