The Adventures of Super Temp Girl part 1

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Clarice sank to her knees in front of the copy machine. She was not to the point of invoking the Xerox gods yet, but she was close. This time, she was only clearing a paper-jam. It was only the fifth jam in the past fifteen minutes, only the third hour she had spent reproducing a fifty-paged booklet, in booklet form, fifty times… on a machine that jammed constantly.

Opening the door on the front of the machine she was greeted by the heady scent of hot toner and the strange glue that seemed to crop up inside copy machines but severed no discernable purpose as far as she could tell, except for her originals to get stuck in. After the tenth time or so that this had happened, she had gotten almost adept at removing the offending remnants of crumpled paper from the machine’s innards without getting toner smeared over more than half of herself. She pushed a stay piece of hair out of her face as she finished, and rose to begin again—now sporting a black smear from chin to temple along one side of her face.

It would be bearable, she thought, if it were only the recalcitrant Xerox machine, or the fact that it didn’t have an automatic feeder or a sorter tray, or the fact that there was no air-circulation, let alone conditioning in this sub-basement hell-hole to which she had been banished. But it was all of those things, plus the supervisor unworthy of any insult she could fathom, in a corporation that thought temps ranked somewhere below protozoa on the food-chain, and probably the evolutionary ladder as well, that made the job truly unbearable.

As the copier grudgingly shuddered to life, she braced herself for the inevitable wave of toner fumes. It always came in a sickening roll, like an invisible fog, and this time she was nearly knocked off her feet at the strength of the odor. Breathing carefully through her mouth, she waited for the air to clear. Her feet throbbed, her head pounded, and lunch was more than an hour off. The air wasn’t getting any better. Abstractly, she wondered if breathing this was really a good idea.
The room was not all that large. Air exchange was virtually nil. How many times had she opened the copier? The page in front of her began to take on a strange, sharp quality. In fact, everything had taken on a certain clarity. Clarice felt the flood of a strange rush. A distant part of her brain thought: wow.

Looking around the room, she gave the piles of boxes and office supplies a critical look. Tugging out a set of desk organizers with broken feet she stacked them on one side of the copy machine. A box of new manila folders and a package of tape dispenser refills came together in seconds in a manner never envisioned by their manufacturers. Finally, at the back of an old filing cabinet she found an old desk-fan with one blade missing, but a cord long enough to reach from the outlet in the hall. Ah yes, her creation was complete, but there was still one potential fly in the ointment.

Clarice turned an icy stare on the copier. It sat there, unrepentant, and resolute. Deliberately, she brought her fist down on the near right corner. The machine hiccuped, whirred to itself for a moment, and then the indicator light on the top turned a triumphant glowing green. "See that you do," she told it.

The new pneumatic sorter on the copy machine was a raging success. After the pages had been copied, the previously recalcitrant stapler proved most reliable once a paper clip was slipped into the spring. When her supervisor, the Demon, came down to gloat at the end of the day, Clarice was calmly stacking completed booklets into boxes. Her open mouth, added to the usual view up the Demon’s upturned nostrils gave Clarice a more intimate view of this woman than her ear, nose and throat specialist had. If she hadn’t been so amused, she would have dropped a pointer about oral hygiene.

Clarice gestured to the copy machine. She had disassembled her sorting tray as soon as she was finished using it, but the copier had, at the completion of the job, remained cheerfully functional. Clarice gave it an affectionate pat.

If possible, the Demon’s eyes seemed to get wider. She turned her gaze to the stapler, still in Clarice’s other hand. "That stapler hasn’t worked in years."

"Really?" Clarice was innocence personified. "I didn’t have any problems with it." The air was beginning to clear, but Clarice’s new-found powers did not leave her. The Demon continued to gape like a stranded fish.

"This is amazing." Abruptly, she focused on Clarice. "You’re amazing. The most incredible temp we’ve ever had. Would you like a permanent position?"

Now, it was Clarice’s turn to be flabbergasted, although she was better at concealing her reaction than the other woman. The Demon took her silence as thoughtful hesitation. "We’d double your hourly wage, and you’d have full benefits of course," she began to swing into human resources mode, "medical, dental, paid vacation, 401k—"

"I’ll think about it." Clarice glanced up at the clock. Five exactly. She picked up her purse and began walking towards the door, the Demon scurrying behind her.

Clarice turned the full force of her charm towards the other woman as she reached the front door. "Call the agency."

Clarice smiled to herself as she opened her car. So will I, she thought smugly, so will I.