The Production Room

My second temping assignment has taken me to the temping agency headquarters, which is in another part of town beside a particularly pretty part of the river. The agency runs its own little publishing house of sorts, and so I am assigned to their "production room." It's a large room with plenty of windows (joy!) and about fifteen desks clustered in various groups. I am the "production proofreader," which title my manager cheerfully shortened to "prodoofer." I proofread things.

So I spend my days with a red pencil in hand, checking for misspellings and all sorts of other problems that may sneak into flyers or books or reports. Sometimes there's a different job every hour. The variety is refreshing.

The designers and other proofreaders who work in production are pleasant people with a sense of humor. The important desks are labeled with official-looking signs ("John Smith, Production Manager"), so of course the table where we put free food to share has its own official sign ("Food Table"). A supervisor was introduced to me with, "This is L., Senior Production Manager. She keeps the M&Ms." And all the computers are named after mountains. One is labeled "Pele," another "Blue Ridge," and the manager's computer is labeled "of Olives."

Of course it's not all fun. My supervisor is usually there when I arrive in the morning and still there when I leave at night. Speaking of leaving, one night I walked out the office door, down by the river, and caught sight of a dozen sunlit sailboats gliding back and forth.

So this latest stopping place holds much to be grateful for, although I still wonder what on earth I'm doing and what kind of job I'll eventually end up with. I sent off writing samples to the office of the job I interviewed for, praying earnestly that there were no typos. Sometimes it feels like every day is a new page of a (rather suspenseful) book, and I really want to find out what happens next.