That's temp business
These gigs give the star struck a shot at their real passion

By Lisa Song
Special to the Tribune
Published February 13, 2002

Meet actor Paul Ohlson: He works the phones by day at Xerox Corp. in Schaumburg, a gig he got through Corporate Resources of Illinois, a temporary and permanent placement firm.

By night, however, he's on stage with the Monkey Etiquette Institute, a sketch comedy group, or rehearsing his role as a British military agent in an independent flick. He has hopes of making it to the big time like some of his screen idols.

"I like Gary Oldman; I like Jack Nicholson," said Ohlson, 28.

And he likes the flexibility of temping. Sure, the money is nice--a temp job can pay considerably more than its traditional counterpart--but for many in the performing and visual arts, dollar signs don't always seem as important as the freedom to pursue their passion.

"It's the only kind of job I could have," Ohlson said of temping. "I can take off days when I need to audition for commercials and industrials."

Ohlson is one of America's 30 million temporary, contracted, self-employed, leased and part-time employees. Many of these workers chose that path because they can decide when, where and how much they want to work, which allows them to follow their true loves.

For Deanna Varagona, 36, doing temporary office work is worth it if it means she has time to sing the country blues, tour with her band, play baritone sax with the likes of Yo La Tengo and John Wesley Harding and take off for Nashville on a whim to perform with Lambchop, an eclectic alternative-country outfit.

"It's tough on the body and soul to get to work in the morning after getting home from a show at 2 or 5 a.m.," said the bespectacled and earthy Varagona.

Her previous job in record distribution didn't pay the bills or give her the leeway to take time off, so Varagona dove into temping. She signed on with New Office Temps and is working as an administrative assistant.

"No, it's not my field of expertise, but it pays well," said Varagona, comparing the $12 to $15 an hour she makes temping to the $6 an hour she used to make in the record business.

"I have the freedom to tour now, without the stress of not knowing what a company will say if I ask for time off," she said.

She also feels lucky to have snagged some long-term jobs during the painful recession. "It's bad all over," she said. "For awhile I was getting 15 hours of work in two weeks."

This is one of the harshest recessions the temporary employment industry has ever experienced, said Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of Virginia-based American Staffing Association. Since September 2000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 668,000 temp jobs were lost nationwide.

"But even with record low unemployment rates, many people prefer temping to permanent positions because they value job flexibility," Wahlquist said.

That certainly appears to be the case in Chicago. Staffing firms in the Chicago area employed an average of 78,596 temporary workers each day in 2001, up from 59,551 in 1995, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

For Varagona, New Office has been a good fit. She has been with the agency for about three years and will soon take a brief hiatus to tour with her band.

"We'll be going to Nashville, Austin, the UK and western parts of Europe," she said.

New Office attracts a lot of the educated artsy type, said the agency's president, Chuck Smith. About 30 percent of the company's 400 active temps fall into this category, he said. Slackers aren't allowed though. "You have to be a high achiever," said Smith, who swears he remembers every temp who has walked through the door at New Office.

"People think I'm crazy, but I usually remember things about all our temps like what they studied, what they're interested in and where they went on to work," he said.

In fact, Smith and his wife, Leora, who manages the company's growing online arm, newoffice.com, are so interested in their temps' passions that they throw an annual shindig. The affair, appropriately called the "It's Not My Day Job, Man," is a laid-back evening of free eats, open bar and, of course, entertainment. The latter courtesy of their talented temps.

The most recent affair was in January at HotHouse in the South Loop.

"Temping allowed me to support my Ph.D habit," said singer/songwriter Jane Bouzek, who's pursuing her doctorate at the University of Chicago and has worked for New Office for seven years.

Her tenure has taken her through everything from clerical duties to teaching PowerPoint for an ad agency. These days, her studies take precedence over her songs, but she's always willing to pick up her guitar and perform a country ballad or a rock song, as she did that night.

So is Barbara Myers. "I was nervous, but the minute I got up to the mike I felt at ease," said Myers, 21, a temp and freelance writer by day and a musical theater diva by night. She slinked up on stage in a black number, strappy high heels and then turned up the heat with her rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin."

And when the economy starts to heat up, you can expect Barbara and company to slip back into steady temp work with ease.

"As the demand begins for businesses to ramp back up, a solution will be for companies to get back in touch with their staffing suppliers and say, `Send me 100 people,'" said Wahlquist of the American Staffing Association. "They will be asking for the full list of every profession you can imagine from clerical, accounting, engineering, medicine/health care, computer training and network support."

Ohlson, the actor, likes the sound of that.

He was offered a full-time job as a receptionist at Xerox, but turned it down because he doesn't care for the commitment.

"I'll just keep temping; I don't want to be tied down," he said.

 

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