Don’t Let a Bad Boss Kill your Temp Work Career

Have you ever had a really bad boss at a temp job?

It’s unfortunately not uncommon for a manager using temporary workers to treat them a little badly since they are only temporary.   They figure that the workers are going to be gone soon so there is no reason to invest any energy into them.  What they don’t know is that they are hurting themselves and the temp workers more than they know it.

Short-Term Emotions Effect Long Term Decisions

I recently wrote an article on my Get Lucky blog about long-term effects of short-term emotions, inspired by Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University.   People make decisions based on their current emotions but the decisions that they make create their behavioural patterns for future, similar situations.  If you have a bad day, you will take out your frustrations on others and the way that you treat them, will be how you will continue to treat them even when your emotions have passed.

Dan Ariely gives the example of having your favorite sports team (New York Yankees? New York Mets? Montreal Canadiens?) win their championship on a night that you are visiting your mother-in-law.  Being on top of the world from your team’s victory, you may decide to buy your mother-in-law flowers.  The next time you visit her, you may remember buying her flowers and once again buy her flowers even though the emotion is not there anymore.

Why it’s Bad for the Boss

If your boss thinks that he can treat you worse than a regular employee, he is wrong.  By treating temps differently, he is conditioning himself to treat people in a similar situation badly as well. The more often it happens, the more he conditions himself to treat people badly in general.  Without knowing it, he will become a more negative person and lose out on opportunity and some great potential relationships.

Why it’s Bad for the Temp Worker

You will be moving on to your next job in no time so you convince yourself to just grit your teeth and bear it.  If you don’t work hard to not let the bad boss get to you, the boss will create emotions and feelings inside of you which will lead to future behaviors that don’t represent you and can harm your career.  Attempt to change your reactions by doing something nice and controlled when you are treated badly.  Perhaps offering the next person you see a smile or a complement.  You’d be surprised at what it can do.

What’s the worst thing a temp boss ever did to you and how did you react?