‘Temp’ Careers

I read with interest your article on the temporary employment business, since I have been a temporary legal secretary for almost six years.

One of the advantages to the employer is that a position can be covered until a permanent employee is found, and very often the temporary is offered the permanent position. So it’s not necessarily a case of trying to avoid putting another secretary on the payroll.

The advantages to the secretary are that the pay per hour is better, you’re above office politics and never are taken for granted--not if they want you to stay. The downside is that there are so many different types of word-processing equipment and a myriad of memory typewriters, often at the same firm. You never know what’s waiting for you when you reach the desk.

It may be that in other businesses, employers prefer temporaries to permanent employees, but in many law firms, they are beginning to hire secretaries as permanent “floaters,” so that the replacement for the absent or vacationing secretary will be knowledgeable not only in the technology but in other procedures.

CHIP SIEGER

West Los Angeles