Disposable people

There are many different type of species inside the corporate environment, from the predator like managers and the back stabbing peons. One of the more peaceful and harmless species is the type known as "Temp staff". These are the people you "rent" from the agency when the work that needs to be done is so simple that it doesn't need a formal employee and all the costs in terms of benefits and insurance that comes with it. They can be fired without stirring up a fuzz, but also the other way around, if the temp staff doesn't appreciate the company and/or the work, they can often pack up and leave with a pretty short notice and just transfer to the next company that the pimping agency hooks them up with.

So, they're pretty much disposable people. In the last six months we've seen 7 temp staff coming and going for two different positions due to a number of reasons. This can make for a pretty frustrating experience since you have to go through the whole deal of making sure a new one is hired before the previous one leaves so they can teach the new one the job before they have their last day. If this is ongoing on a basically monthly basis the original knowledge of the work and how to do it effeciently is pretty quickly lost in the system...

Today, I interviewed a new temp staff together with the sales director and Mr. Shachou since the quality of the previous ones has not really been as amazing as I would have wanted and my faith in their recruiting abilities is pretty low at this point. Now, it comes with the game that you can't put too much expectations in terms of experience on a temp staff, once in a while some really good people comes by, but most of these ones chose to not work as temp staff, instead preferring the official corporate employee route.

For the person I interviewed today, I received the CV and please allow me to highlight some of the computer skill that was empasized:

Microsoft Excel: Can adjust size of letters, draw lines, adjust height of cells and rows, input figures in a form and save document.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but at least she claims to be able to save documents so I hope it'll be ok. You learn to put the expectations low.