Where is the business at which you well work located? Can you get there easily? Will it be cost effective for you to work there? Are you factoring in items like wardrobe, travel time, and parking when you agree to the salary? Will you have to relocate?
Working temp somewhere is just like working somewhere full time. You need to make it cost effective for you to work there. In other words, you do not want to spend more than you will make to get to work.
Check to make sure you can easily get to the place where the job is. The bank branch in San Jose where Pam was to report as a computer consultant at 8:00 A.M. was two miles from her home. Pam exited from the bus where the driver had suggested and quickly started walking to what she thought was her place of work. She arrived late with sore feet, having not worn shoes that were appropriate for walking the extra nine blocks when the bus driver let her out at the wrong place.
Pam should have made sure she understood exactly where the temp job was before she accepted the job. She should have asked the service for specific directions. If the service does not know the best way to travel between your home and the job site, make sure you take the time to plan your transportation. In such a case, it's a good idea to call the company itself. If Pam had called the company, she would have had better directions to the bank branch where she was supposed to report to work.
If you are driving, make sure you understand where you are going. Ask the service for written directions or a map showing you how to get to the place where the service is sending you to work. Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to get to work. Allow yourself extra time if you are unfamiliar with the area you are driving to. Remember, you will not make a good first impression if you are running late and do not get to your temp job on time.
Parking
Is parking provided by the business or the service, or will you be expected to pay for parking? Be sure to find this out, or you could be paying $5 to $20 out of your pocket in daily parking fees.
Some services never provide parking for their temps and tell the temps they will need to find parking facilities and pay for them on their own. Other services have agreements with the businesses they work with. Such agreements mean a business will provide so many parking places a month for temps, or will provide a temp with a parking pass that will not cost the temp any money.
George was assigned by a service to work as a physician's assistant at a clinic. The clinic where he was to work was in a high rise building in the downtown area of the city where George lived. George was familiar with the building and drove there on his first day of the temp job. He had not asked the service where he was to park nor had the service mentioned parking to him, so George parked in the garage of the high rise building.
At the end of George's first day at the clinic job, he asked the supervisor if she would stamp or verify his parking slip. The supervisor said it was not the policy of the clinic to provide or pay for temporary employees' parking. George turned his slip in to the parking lot attendant and was charged $22 for one day's parking. When he called the service about his parking situation, the service said its policy was that temporary employees had to pay for parking. George never asked about parking when he accepted the temp job at the clinic, and the staffing service assumed he knew he would have to find and pay for his own parking.
This was an expensive lesson for George. Always ask the service about parking before you accept a job. If you have to pay for parking, make sure you are being paid enough to make it worth your while. If you are not being paid enough, ask the service to pay you more to cover your parking.
Dress Code
Do you have the appropriate clothes to wear to the businesses where you will temp? It does not cost a lot of money to be clean and neat. Make sure you have a dark suit or dress if you will be working temp in a conservative business environment. Ask the service the type clothes full time employees wear in the places where you are asked to work.
If you do not get any guidance from the service on how to dress, dress conservatively and professionally. That means a business suit for women and men. You can always change your attire the second day of the temp job if you are overdressed. It is better to make a good impression the first day by dressing more formally than necessary than to make a bad impression by dressing too casually.
Joseph accepted a temp job that started on a Friday in an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. Joseph was asked by the service to supervise the telemarketing for the insurance company; he would work on Friday as well as Monday through Friday of the following week. Joseph had read that many businesses observe a casual dress day on Fridays, so he assumed he should dress casually on the first day of his job. You know what happened.
Joseph did not ask the service how to dress. The service's personnel assumed he would understand how he should dress when they explained what the job was and where he would be working. Joseph showed up in khakis and a knit golf shirt on the first day of his job. The executive vice president at the insurance company showed him where he would be working. Joseph observed that no one else was dressed casually. The executive vice president suggested to Joseph that they have lunch together that day.
At lunch the executive vice president said Joseph was doing a good job supervising the telemarketing, but that he would need to dress up on Monday if he wanted to continue the temp job. Joseph said he would wear a suit on Monday. The executive vice president said that particular insurance company observed casual day on the last Friday of each month and that he would tell the service about the casual dress policy of the insurance company so that in the future no other temps would "dress down" when they were not supposed to.
