Pounding the Pavement Read Online Free PDF

CDs and taking enormous pleasure in telling us what song is playing, who is singing it, and what year it was recorded (and should anyone ask, he can also supply the name of the LP and the track number). I hate the girl seated beside me because she doesn’t need to talk on the phone quite so loudly. And I hate the smug interns, because they know their free labor is a gift they could just as easily bestow elsewhere.
    But most of all, I hate being me. Because I am smarter, more professional, and more eager to please than anyone else in this damn office and there’s no way for me to prove it. Nobody noticed how quickly I filed my paperwork, nobody thought to mention how polite I sound when I answer the phone. And when I dutifully watched the Stellar Productions reel of sample work and coughed up a few giggles where I thought they might be appropriate, nobody even looked pleased that I made such an effort to pretend to be enjoying myself.
    With each passing hour, and with fewer assignments coming my way, I can feel myself peeling back layer after layer of the Professional Sarah, letting a little bit of the Unemployed Sarah shine through. Come to think of it, there’s only a fine line between thetwo (a line made even finer after taxes). I can’t help but wonder if my time wouldn’t be better spent at home, where I don’t have to hastily click out of the Hotjobs website every time someone walks by my desk. Hell, my time would be better spent if I were waiting to get picked for jury duty.
    It isn’t that I’m not happy to be working. I’m just not happy to be temping. If the company interns are the larvae and the employees the fluttering butterflies, then being a temp makes me the pupa, nestled in the gooey cocoon of my own slime. No one is going to take the time to nurture me and no one is going to give me wings to make me fly. I’m just a waste of space on a twig.
    Oh, you know who else I hate? I hate the former dweller of this cubicle, whatever mangy mutt has already pissed on this here fire hydrant. He, with the stacks and stacks of videocassettes—some even mutated to be twice or half the size of regular VHS tapes. And then there’s the bookshelf, chock full of binders with budget reports and production notes, and books with such sterile titles as
The Simon Archer Plan: How to Break International Markets
, or
Research Analysis: Volumes I—IV
. What a sad, sad existence this person must lead.
    And yet by mid-afternoon, I find myself poring over these tomes voraciously, starved for entertainment of any kind—yes, even the dry, insipid, boring kind. I am delighted to find a talent binder devoted to headshots for aspiring commercial actresses, crushed when the young Alice Zucker’s paltry résumé marks the last entry.
    I return the binder to the shelf and move on to the next item, surprised to find my index finger take a sudden dip. For the next book down the line is a paperback with a spine so worn and frayed I can’t make out the title. I withdraw it curiously and gasp when I see the front cover.
    Still Life with Woodpecker?
Get out! Since when does Tom Robbinsrub shoulders with child star Alice Zucker and Simon Archer, International Market-Man of Mystery?
    “Excuse me?”
    I look up and find a frown. It’s on the rather unpleasant face of a middle-aged man eyeing me carefully. I shove the book back on the shelf and smile prettily.
    “Can I help you?” I ask.
    “Where’s Jake?”
    Damn it. Don’t people know I’m the temp? Why must they insist on asking me questions I can’t possibly answer? Part of me wants to crawl under the desk and mutter, “That’s strange. I know he was just here a minute ago …”
    Instead I shrug and opt for the infinitely more mature, “Dunno.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’m Sarah. I’m temping for him.”
    “Great.” He holds out one of those minicassettes. “Can you transfer DV to D-Beta?”
    Again the shrug. Again the pretty smile. Again the sophisticated reply.