Working hard, or hardly working?

Today is officially Day 30 of living in New York.  It's a little hard to believe it's only been four weeks... with all of the craziness of moving in and getting everything organized, tearing up the kitchen, building and repairing things in the apartment, as well as job searching and interviewing and meeting all kinds of people, I now understand the meaning of a 'New York Minute.'

The job search has been a slow and frustrating process so far, but I'm keeping at it.  Craigslist is worthless, as far as I'm concerned - every response I've gotten has been a scam.  Career Builder hasn't been much better - it seems like the only companies that are using the site are desperate insurance companies looking for goonies to do their outside sales work - definitely not a job for me.  So, about three weeks ago, I sent my resume into a local temp agency.  I've worked with temp agencies in the past, and they usually have one large company that they send their new employees to, and that's it.  However, temp jobs in New York are much easier to come by.  In the last 20 days of being with them, I've had two serious interviews and three temporary jobs.  Both interviews went well, and I was actually offered a position after the second... but I turned it down.  (Maybe I was being too picky, but it was just a gut feeling that I had to go with.)  The temp jobs have also been abundant - in the past two weeks, I've been running around Brooklyn as a secret shopper, I've been a "go-fer" at a small business event (led by a group of professionals with adorable French accents), and for the past three days I've been working at a booth at a huge gourmet food convention held in Manhattan.

While the pay for the temp jobs has been great, I've come to realize that there is a very good reason these are temporary jobs - they are absolutely mind-numbing.  As much as I've enjoyed the perks (ie: free thumb drives and pens from the French people and two huge cases of chocolate from a neighboring booth at the food convention) I am most definitely looking forward to having a steady job that requires a little more brain power.  That's not asking too much, is it?

Malice