During those five days typing correspondence in a small office with one other secretary (who kept wandering off to talk to secretaries in other small offices), I had to answer the phone. I knew nothing. I quickly learned to admit not knowing anything and uttered the immortal words of every temporary employee, “I’m sorry, I’m just a temp.”
On my last day, someone rang about an appointment with the boss. I looked on the desk diary – nothing. “Its not in his diary,” I said. Next thing I knew, I was being hauled into the boss’ office and literally interrogated – “Why did you tell the client he didn’t have an appointment?” “Because it wasn’t in the diary” “Didn’t you think to check?” “No.” “Here, you can explain that to him.” And then, to my utter amazement, he thrust a phone into my hands. I was stunned. Whilst the boss looked on, furious, I had to cut through my excruciating embarrassment and explain to the person who had called before that I had made a mistake and had caused him to miss his appointment.
It wasn’t over there, either. There was more. The boss even made me and the other office secretary (who had been there when I’d taken the call and saw me check the diary) write out statements explaining what had happened. How could they do that to a temp who had only been there a few days? I was glad to leave after that. I found the place oppressive, and I never learned to distinguish between the staff and the inmates – which made walking through the building to get to the small, nicotine stained smoke room extremely nerve racking. It wasn’t until my next assignment I discovered I had developed a real phobia about answering the phone, which remains with me still.
