Conversations between temps are akin to those that one conducts while waiting for the doctor. With boundless hours of waiting to fill, the participants chat about the one thing that they have in common- in the doctor’s surgery, illness, in temp-land, temping. In the same way that while one’s own illness is fascinating while another’s is heart-breakingly dull, tales of employers past take on a Salty Dog twang- ‘Oh yeah? Well, when I was working for X, I had to wear high heels EVERY DAY.’ ‘Sure, that’s nothing, I had to wear high heels, and a spandex bodysuit. AND they didn’t pay me for my lunch-break’.

This is going somewhere, I promise. Every so often I work as a receptionist. I make a spectacularly mediocre receptionist, (albeit a very well-dressed one, but that’s beside the point.) My fellow-receptionist today was, for my sins, also a temp. After the above-mentioned obligiatory ‘Oh, where have you worked before’ conversation, I turned away and pretended to read my book. I’m not very good at prolonged friendly chatting.

Reading my book was a silly idea. Other Temp likes books too. Fantasy Fiction especially. I like Owen Pallett’s Final Fantasy. She likes Warcraft. It was like a human version of when Google goes ‘Were you looking for…?’ after one has accidentally mistyped something. Conversation was resurrected, and resumed at a tortuous pace all through the day. Seriously, Fantasy Fiction- Not That Interesting.

All I really wanted to do was to listen to this She and Him track over and over again. She and Him is a project between Zooey Deschanel and M Ward. Like a less croaky, less coarse Moldy Peaches, or a if Belle and Sebastian went lo-fi and less twee. The track’s crying out to be stolen by Apple or some dreadful pro-biotic yoghurt for an ad. Or as the background to some ghastly romantic comedy directed by Nora Efron. Alas.

Ailbhe Malone is 21 years old. Her father told her the other day that she was 'going to change the world'. She remains sceptical.
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