Receptionists can make the day the most difficult. And it’s a pity, as you encounter them first. But it seems that the people most likely to resent temps are those who see little value in engaging with them. People at the top and the bottom prove generally welcoming. Both managers and the mail room often are cordial and civil. But receptionists and secretaries, who cultivate close relationships with the powerful and get value from their everyday intimacy, at best see little point in talking to temps, and, at worst, see us as unpredictable and unwanted presences. Any information divulged from these surly sources is presented in a way to highlight obvious ignorance and confusion. Never have I been told quite as quietly witheringly where I could put my coat as I was this very morning.

Today’s assignment is at a midtown Public Relations firm. There’s another temp from the agency there, too. A tall, young man, still wet blond hair carefully combed, neck red with acne and the aggravation of a morning shave. He annoys me at first by engaging in pleasantries with the coffee bar hostess. This office has its own coffee bar complete with eight stools right in the lobby. Offered a cup of complimentary coffee he refuses politely (as do I), but as we wait for our contact to appear he ventures an exchange with the barista - “Do you have a favorite coffee to make?” Idiot, I think. Patronizing idiot.

We are charged by a very friendly young woman with saving a number of documents on to flash drives. It is boring, but rhythmic. There is a pile of them and we must get to the bottom, one at a time. I am pleased by the time it takes for the files to be copied and could happily spend the morning doing this. I am slightly annoyed when my colleague comes up with the idea of using both USB ports to double our productivity. “I don’t know, maybe it won’t save any time?” “No, it’s a good idea,” I reluctantly acknowledge. But if we finish...what then?

Lunch. We are told to be back in the office at 1:30. I’m a couple of minutes late having accidentally got on an express elevator which took me with an astonishing speed to the 46th floor despite my frantic pressing of button 17. For a moment I fantasize that the elevator’s gone haywire, and I’m ascending to the roof of the building ever faster only to burst through in a splinter of concrete, steel, and timber where I’m suspended momentarily in mid-air before crashing down in an arc of destruction onto the city street below. I cringe. Not in terror, but in mortification. While at lunch I had sat in a park where children played in a sunken concrete ring filled with simple sand. The parents - or ethnic guardians, as seemed to be the case - stood along the outside, arms crossed and watchful. It was like a gladiatorial event miniaturized and stripped of bloodlust. Instead of Romans and lions, there were little kids, curly haired and clumsy in brightly colored and oversized coats and ribbons, innocently sifting sand and walking in circles. They do this oblivious to the click clacking high heeled passers-by and the pitter patter of the small dogs who lead along an endless stream of elderly ladies.

Our friendly young woman is not quite ready for us upon our return and we’re instructed to hang out at the coffee bar. We pass a pleasant 45 minutes watching CNN and chatting. I’m warming to my young colleague. I talk of Dublin, he talks of his struggle to find work that is meaningful. I sympathize, and offer to get him another complimentary coffee.

The afternoon brings us to a conference room looking out over Manhattan and views of balconies draped in the spring sun. Folders in need of collating and reorganizing await us, along with some of the untouched offerings for an executive’s meeting canceled earlier. We help ourselves to cold sodas.

The frantic activity that keeps tearing our friendly young woman from us (How many years younger than me is she, I momentarily think - could it be a decade?) and the purported reason for our being there is a launch by a major Japanese electronics company of a 3D television. Our folders contain information useful to the organizers of this event, including too many references to how cool and un-cumbersome the special glasses needed for the TVs are. We learn of a performance by a popular hip hop group at the launch. At one point, we see a script which has the Japanese head of this major electronics company ending a very brief welcoming speech by painfully quoting from the current hit by this band. I’m embarrassed. Doesn’t anyone object to this foolishness?

By 5 PM the work we were really hired to do is still not yet ready, and won't be ready for a number of hours. And so we are anti-climatically sent home, despite being contracted until 6PM. “Don’t worry,” our friendly young woman says, cheerful to the end. “I’ll sign off on a full day.”