Corporations benefit from brokering deals with temporary agencies, in a macroeconomic sense, to make themselves more competitive in the global market. With the work world requiring increased amounts of technological savvy, corporations look for cost-efficient ways to re-train or terminate employees with antiquated skills. Temporaries offer the flexibility to respond quickly to market changes because they don't technically count as employees of corporations. Instead, they're employed by the temp agency, thereby eliminating most—and, in some states, virtually all—employer/employee obligations.

By the Department of Labor's standards, temps have about a 50-percent chance of being considered employed. That is, half of the time, the Department of Labor could survey me and I could hypothetically respond "yes" to working for pay some time that week. Their flabby definition includes "all part-time and temporary work, as well as full-time and year-round employment."

Just as easily, I could qualify as a person who has looked for work over the past four weeks and who is currently available for work, i.e., an unemployed person. Theoretically, this is the case nearly 100 percent of the time, because I could be available to work any day following a one-day temp job.

In the end, it's easier to blow off the Department of Labor because either way, you might not make any money. In the post-9/11 reality, I'm working twice a month imputing addresses into databases, and not only is it not paying rent, it's far from reliable. And yet, I begrudgingly accept the rare occasion to assemble binders for supervisors who pronounce "ASAP" like it's not an acronym, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

At first, temping was to be my last-ditch option, considered only to avoid turning into that tired cliché—the aloof café employee who does creative work on the side to maintain an artier-than-thou façade. I had recently moved out of the homestead, trying to find a way to pay rent and figured that, like anyone else, I wasn't above doing grunt work for some office, as long as its politics didn't make me wretch.

Corporations offer salaried jobs with benefits, more than any cute little mom-and-pop store could ever provide. Until I found a way to make it as a writer (shedding journalistic light on the dire situation in our nation's ghettos, and such), I assumed I could handle life as a paraprofessional.

Decked out in blazers that made my body feel somewhat alien, I did some downtown interviewing, trying to sound enthusiastic at the chance to play a support role in a team environment—all the while wondering what would be worse: getting the job or not getting the job. I also tried my luck with the state. As it turns out, the bureaucrats with combovers are loath to give up their stable incomes, let alone process my job applications, in less than six months. With the editorial market at a standstill, that pretty much left temping.

In previous summer and winter breaks, it wasn't so bad. Two summers ago, I worked as a personal assistant for a venture capital startup, directly reporting to a guy known to my friends as "Hot George." Hot George smelled of musk and men's hair gel and possessed a retro-eighties charm a la Gordon Gekko. He only found time to be pleasant to me when I wore dresses above the knee. As incredulous as it was for a then-textbook feminist to be the personal assistant for a textbook corporate scoundrel, it was a good story. Plus, it didn't matter—I wasn't really a temp; I was a student making spending cash.

Of course, things have changed—drastically. The dot-com implosion combined with a slow economy and 9/11 fallout has flooded temp agencies with a bevy of skilled people looking for work. Dozens of applicants compete for one temp assignment, and many of them have a lot more experience than a recent grad.

As Dan Sullivan, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, says: "When things are bad, temps tend to be the first ones out of work." In the current recession, temps are economically efficient, acting as buffers for corporations that want to eschew risk. They avoid the real costs, such as health benefits and social security taxes, of the more traditional employer/employee relationship.

Sullivan notes that temping tends to flourish in states with legislation that counteracts the federal employment-at-will policy, which allows companies to terminate contracts of employment whenever they deem necessary. In states like Illinois, which recognizes workers compensation and other pro-labor policies, corporations are more inclined to use temps than they are to take on more full-time employees. This way, they have people they can hire and fire at will, unfettered by the restrictive caveats state and federal pro-labor laws imposed on their relations with regular employees.

Thanks to this increased demand, the number of temporary workers has quadrupled since 1982. Temporaries now comprise roughly 2 percent of the labor force. In addition, statistics from the federal government indicate a growing number of companies contracting out work to non-employees. Currently, 44 percent of businesses partially depend on non-employee services, be them temps, independent contractors or other arrangements. And although the growth in temporary work has led to an overall decline in unemployment rates, again, definitions of such are tricky: just because a temp agency has a person on file does not guarantee that person will work or be paid regularly.

Waiting to meet Robert, a temp coordinator for my new agency, I'm looking at the "Temporary of the Month" shrine with a strange emotional mix: on one hand, I pity the honorary temp. She, it seems, is being commemorated for insisting she stop to call the agency and inform them she wouldn't make it to her assignment, as she had just been hit by a bus. On the other, I'm jealous—she'd had a position that actually lasted four whole weeks.

Robert is very Human Resources. Using his hyperbolic HR voice, he employs a surplus of vocal intonations to say that I should "check in tomorrow morning!" so I can start working.

Thus begins a cycle of waking up at 8:30am to call an assemblage of temp agencies, only to be told that "nothing's in yet but we'll keep you posted." I return to bed stressed out. By the time I officially "get up," tension has collected in my shoulder blades, as I try, with varying degrees of success, to run "résumé blitzkriegs"—a pattern of sorting classified clippings into two piles: "decent" and "nearly decent" and altering my cover letter accordingly for each. I rarely leave my apartment, anticipating the rare occasion when a temp agency will find me a job. In light of my severe underemployment, I can't justify spending money on anything remotely pleasurable, and, if I do, it will be done only with copious guilt.

Weekends are particularly complicated. Trying to suppress resentment toward friends with salaried jobs and fancy health club memberships, I'm repulsed by my own feelings because I know they've supported my various career-related endeavors.

Such is my mindset when Robert invites me to the agency offices at 8:30, so I can get first dibs on any assignment that might come in. The policy being, even if you don't get called in, you still make forty bucks.

That I'm expected to jump at such a supposedly generous offer tests both patience and dignity. How to explain to Robert that his temp agency makes chattel of its "employees"? There's major temptation to make some declaration of self, to repair my bruised ego and avenge my failed game plan.

I say I'll be there bright and early.

Riding the train, I'm paranoid, wondering if people sense that I can't even make it as a temp. It's difficult to resist an urge to throw large objects at the next fool clutching their briefcase while reading "Harry Potter."

Signing in right on time, I'm waiting with people my own age, something I haven't seen downtown in what feels like eons. There are two: a boy with a Colgate smile and a pretty, earthy girl, who apparently know each other. Through devoted eavesdropping (what else is there to do?), I gather they're both recent graduates, with a penchant for acting and in need of a job. That they're God-fearing thespians does nothing to thwart my desire to get up, hug them and talk about our shared experiences. Their cheery countenances, however, are out of sync with my bitterness. Seeing my peers in the same situation and not feeling sorry for themselves makes it harder to wallow in self-pity. I glance over at the temp of the month's blurry photograph, almost able to laugh.

I leave at 10:30am, no job but $40 richer, refreshed by a new sense of purpose. I'm not entitled to a good temp job just because I want or need one. I may be killing time in temp work but no one needs to know that. It's time to right the wrongs, to do what's necessary to in order to become more marketable. Really get out there. Convincing him it's for the purposes of journalism, Robert agrees to meet with me to peruse my journalism and general office résumés.

"There's nothing wrong whatsoever with the résumés," he assures me, shaking his head. "We're dealing with a market that is so tight right now, we're getting piles of resumes." He says "piles" like Zsa-Zsa Gabor says dahling.

The secretary's voice booms from the speakerphone. Excusing himself, Robert takes a call. "No," he says into the phone, pausing while the other person talks. "If I find anything out, I'll get back to you tomorrow. All right. Thanks. Bye."

Curt, blunt and exactly the same thing I've heard every morning at 8:30 for the last two months. "You are extremely placeable. I mean extremely."

Pointing to the résumé, I ask if there are any improvements to be made that will help make me actually placeable. "The words popping out are 'writer,' 'editorial.' We place administrative assistants. While those skills would be needed, they're not the number one thing clients are looking for," he says.

So "extremely placeable" really means nothing. And while it's somewhat obvious that I'm being given the runaround, who wants to admit to wasting two months of their life? Before I leave, Robert remembers that it's National Temp Week and hands me a fist-sized, pre-wrapped peanut butter cup.

Needing an actual paycheck, I've since left temping for the more reliable world of waiting tables. I'm working with an all-foreign wait staff whose stories about struggling to make rent before they acquired work Visas put my self-pitying stories to shame. As it turns out, I never did get beyond the one-day temp jobs, though Robert found my roommate a job that she's had since September. With my mornings open, I even have the time to work on my writing ventures. I regret ever settling for less.