Well, spent another day at my 2nd favorite freelance client, a big Wall St Bank. They have a new logo/brand/company makeover going live on Monday, and I've been periodically helping them make new word templates and such to facilitate the new brand rollout. The office I work in is a little inside room dubbed The Cave, that holds an increasing number of cubes, tables, etc ... to house some of the lowlier marketing folks, myself included. It's a regular drama show, with the oh-so-italian marketing guy that gives me great deals on my hours (let's say he's generous with the time sheets when I don't have to stay all day), the job-hunting unhappy one who sounds like the overdone chick on dharma and greg, and the drama queen "A" who seems to be in charge of the web portion of the new brand rollout, and getting more wound up by the day.
"A", the loudest one in the bunch by a long shot, had a new recruit in hand today and was taking GREAT delight in saying "And YOU will be handling that from now on!" over and over again as new things came up. The recruit, alas, seemed much more interested in poring over the office supply catalog and ordering up his favorite kinds of folder and tape dispensers than getting to know what he's be doing. Considering the fact that he's responsible for singlehandely answering questions from all over the world about how this new logo and brand applies to every aspect of the bank, his profound interest in the best place to get coffee, how to handle personal calls, and loudly resubmitting insurance claims over the phone was rather interesting to me. I couldn't help but listen all day to his comments, instructions, etc and found myself wanting to place bets on how soon "A" would be cursing him up and down the minute he walked out the door for being incompetent or what have you. Mind you, this is the woman who had a shouting match last week (on the phone in her cube) with a friend over how horrible her boyfriend was and whether he'd cheated on her or not, culminating in a list of adjectives not quite fit to print and slamming the phone down. She did pop up once, as the rest of us were shrugging and trying to concentrate enough to work, and say "oh, sorry guys, I guess you can hear this" and then sitting down and going right back to it. SO I guess she doesn't have strong boundaries between work and personal stuff at work, but she does seem to be a very hard worker when she does get down to it. The new recruit, on the other hand, is making a play on day one for getting as much free stuff out of the company as he can.
My reaction to it all? Wondering how soon they'd be looking for a replacement, and what rate I could finagle out of them for being already familiar with the company and the brand. Could the price it high enough for me to be willing to sign a 6 month 5-day-a-week contract? After all I am temping only for the money, not really the experience, though I am learning a lot about people, making some friends, and getting more ms office experience. None of that really builds my coaching business though. Hm. Doing some soul-searching this week on why I am really disliking business in general, and rebelling against having to market myself as a coach at all. Shouldn't they all just come flocking to my door and beg to be clients? Come on! Determined to get a view on it where I'm comfortable marketing myself as a coach, and have a plan down for getting the word out there to the right people. Any ideas?