The Brenda Diaries

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Meet Brenda. A temp with a bad attitude, but an excellent work ethic.

Working assignments all around Los Angeles, Brenda was the official purse holder for a high powered event planner, has had an employer ask about her ovulation cycle, worked as a kiosk gypsy at an upscale mall and suffered as the reluctant muse for a frustrated architect who’d rather write screenplays on company time.

Off the clock, Brenda’s boyfriend and best friend compete for her attention while she spends a little too much time with guy she met on a job. Brenda’s positive she can handle it all, but sometimes work and life get to be a bit too much even for someone as organized as Brenda.

Working for free goes against everything I believe in. If I was a religious person (which I’m not thanks to my parents), I’d worship in the church of wages. This is why taking an internship at a company that looks like it can well afford to pay me (free beer and bar food on Fridays, bagels on Wednesdays, catered lunch on Mondays) just doesn’t make sense to me.

I blame it on my hormones and maybe some residual effect from being recently dumped. I went to Starbucks this morning with the full intent of finally making that cute guy notice me, not by doing anything weird, but just turning my allure up to 11 and it worked! We got to talking (I was the perfect combination of witty, dry and approachable) until he said he had to go to work which was my cue to say I also had to go to work.

But having no work to go to (sorry, but I’m snobby enough not to want to admit that I work at an outdoor mall sunglasses kiosk), I said I worked at that beer bash company. He was impressed by my double lie (that I have a job and that it’s at that company) and said I was lucky to have landed a job there. We exchanged numbers and I had to pretend to get into a car that looked like mine (I walked to Starbucks, he drives a Scion which I’ll give him a pass on because it was very clean inside and out). He waited for me to get into my car (manners!), but I faked him out by saying I had to use the bathroom. So we said good-bye again but this time with a hug(!). As he was pulling out of the parking lot, I called up the beer bash company and took the internship.

So now I’m just half a liar, but I still have to figure out how to work at the sunglasses kiosk, tutor Void and jam in 20 hours of free labor a week. At least I can have all the beer, bagels and massages I want.