not-for-profit Temping

I promised myself that I wouldn't do it. It makes me crazy. It runs contrary to every fiber of my being. But I did it. I got another office, temp job. I'm working at this mega-huge non-profit organization that takes in millions of dollars from Upper East Siders and uses it to clean up vandalism in Central Park so that property values stay sufficiently high. Like all non-controversial, bigwig non-profits in this city, they love to throw a pretentious, yearly dinner and/or luncheon to provide an arena for ostentatious displays of wealth... and to raise money. This is the 3rd non-profit that I've worked since I moved here and it never ceases to amaze me how much disposable income lives on the Upper East Side. This event is so exclusive, you've gotta know somebody if you want the privilege of spending $500 per ticket or, up to $50,000 per table. They're based on the southeast corner of Central Park so I get to walk across the park every day. There isn't a square centimeter of the park that doesn't feel like it's untouched, but damn, it's beautiful. Daffodils, crocuses and forsythia are in full bloom.

This is the first job that I've hade on the Upper East Side. I am regularly seeing people that might as well be living on Mars for all that I share in common with them. It's a culture of toy dogs and plastic surgery that'd make sense to nobody outside their inner circle. The younger women are long, thin, blond, beautiful and virtually non-sexual. They look like laminated models that are still living in the pages of a fashion magazine. And such anger. It must be the backwash from all the reindeer games that society people play with one another.

Interestingly, I've had very few sightings of the millionaire husbands that mate with these specimens. I would never be so gauche to expect a dual-sighting. Occasionally, I get a glimpse of a potential sighting as some man in an Armani suit strategizes with another over a cell phone. The discussions normally involve somebody making a 'move' in a board meeting somewhere and what the potential fallout might be. It's all very arcane and utterly childish in it's tone. I suspect that most of these husbands work in the Financial District and eat their lunches in those restaurants with dark wood and tinted windows that I could never possibly enter, much less afford. They don't go out at night, unless it's to catch a taxi or elongated car. Much of the Upper East Side looks like an abandoned theme park at night. Entire blocks lie dormant until someone with a dog-ornament emerges with a cellphone surgically-attached to one ear.

I know... I'm being bad. But hey, when you're earning low wages at an organization raising tens of millions of dollars and handing out door prizes of equivalent value to your yearly rent, it can be a little demoralizing.

a little Credit in the straight world

This is the last week of my unemployment. I don't have a job but I have finally succumbed to the grey, listless world of Temping. The day that I left my old job, I vowed that I would never return to the cubicle-and-fluorescent habitat of Administrative Assisted Hell... well, at least not in a non-arts business. I've really had it with temping. I have done it far to long. That 8 A.M. phone call from the agency, followed by the shuffling search for the street then office then supervisor then lackey-who-needs-help which takes you to the dirty looks as you check your e-mail in between mind-numbing re-ordering of files or answering telephones and talking to angry people because you're not the one they wanted to talk you then the awkward begging for lunch then more of the same then the mousy knock on the supervisor's door to get your timesheet signed so you can dial '9', pound the agency's number in the keypad and send off an official notice of where you wasted your existence for the last 8 hours. The aching in my right hand has risen to a slow growl... Damned that numeric keypad!

New York City is a unique world for the job-searcher. It seems as if every interesting job suffers from one of three ailments - nepotism, unionization or favoritism. Businesses can, and often do, suffer from all three ailments but at least one is present. Multiple family members work ticketing offices in the City. Nobody, not even the snob-arts up at Lincoln Center can avoid it. I know the value of unions. They're critical when you are dealing with corrupt and/or impersonal corporate interests. There are some places and some positions that have been saved from unions. New York, however, has taken many unions and turned them into art forms. Look, when some art grad grabs a job at Pearl Paint, the largest art supply store in the city, he/she isn't expecting to earn a fortune, but when the pay is $8/hour AND you have to plug in union dues, then somebody's earning something and it sure-as-shit ain't the clerks. Favoritism is an old acquaintance of mine. We go way back. I've stood on the outside looking in and I've even gotten a few gigs in L.A. based on the same criteria. For the entertainment industry, it's a way for a film/TV crew to get help that isn't gonna bitch and moan when they're pulling 16 hour workdays or getting screamed at by a spoiled producer. In New York City, it is often a way for semi-competent people to rise through the ranks of various professions without ever really getting any better at what they do. When you get into upper management, this is one of the best way to move around, especially if you can piece together good severance packages along the way.

I find it interesting how American culture treats the arts in such a dismissive manner, yet there is no shortage of people desperate to work in it. Finding any job in the arts requires extensive experience In The Field, significant salary sacrifices (which are exponentially-worsened in NYC) and a time-immersive availability that only an twenty-something, trust-fund single could ever hope to meet. Otherwise, how could a person really be fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, have at least 7 years of gallery experience and afford a $12-15 an hour job in Manhattan (don't forget that you need to be available nights and weekends :)). I've seen people working gallery jobs in SOHO and the Meatpacking District. They're not THAT skilled. All you have to do is sit in front of an iMac, look pretty and ignore anybody who doesn't look money enough to afford anything in the shop. My three years of film production experience, combined with my summer theater management experience, along with my 3 years of marketing analysis, and my playwriting skills pretty much add up to Jack-over-Shit. I guess that being a Renaissance Man only worked during the Renaissance... and only when there was affordable housing.

Bitch bitch bitch

Moan moan moan

...have I covered everything?... oh yeah-

Whine whine whine

As my girlfriend said, so effortlessly destroying the extended rationale of my last post, "Maybe you'll feel better about others when you feel like you are accomplishing something in your life."