Spherion

What a terrible experience I had working for this company. Hired to do a catering gig for a large pharmaceutical company at the Westin. The interview process was nice enough, I was excited to join this temp agency as they sure seem busy & quite honestly my impression of Veronica was that she was a straight shooter– my favorite type of person.
OK– I had to stay on Andriana to email me the paperwork, but that’s fine– shows they are busy.
Now, the event. Very disorganized but that CAN BE the event business. I’m well versed in events. I do suggest they have «floor managers» as there were to many cooks in the kitchen– no one truly in charge at the ballroom. This simple thing would have made life easier for all. A professional company knows this. And of course, most of the self imposed leaders were full of bad info. I just ignored them. Stayed busy and helpful to the team. Don’t get why so many had trouble finding things to do… anyways.
Now, here’s the real issue. We are unpaid for breaks over 15 minutes and told to take a 30 minute break. Told to hang in the staff lounge area. No problem… BUT… We are not allowed to bring our phone, purse, water, NOTHING into the job that can’t discreetly fit in our pockets. If I am on an unpaid 30 minute break– I want to go to my car, eat my power bar, drink my Gatorade and smoke a cigarette, I see no reason why that is not allowed. I throw a jacket over my uniform to hide my «outsourced employee» status. I have mints, scented hand sanitizer, spray my body and hair with a nice scent to mask the smell. I know it’s not a perfect sytem– quitting smoking is the only perfect way not to smell like cigs, but I’ve never been called out on smelling like em, so it seems to work. Bottom line is I need to eat something, get some sugar in me and yes, gawd darn it– smoke a cig. It was to be an 8 hour shift. One expects to be able to do this things on a shift that long!
It’s ridiculous to be told we must stay in one little area, have no access to our food (they did provide water and I believe there were sugar packets I guess I could have thrown in my water to get my sugar boost), but it is an unpaid break. Our cars were right on the other side of the room we were told to stay in– no guests, etc would even see us unless they were in the parking lot. (which is hard to believe guests would be in that parking lot– it was for US)
Ridiculous to be so controlling and lead with an iron fist at the wrong time. Highly discourage anyone from working with this company. No wonder they were still staffing last minute for this event. I saw tons of postings for this job– guess others already learned what I discovered. STAY AWAY!

Richard, Denay and Yolanda are the staff at Spherion. When you are looking for someone, whether it’s an admin to fill in for a few days, or a high level manager or executive, these folks can find you the right candidate. So listen — don’t try to do HR stuff yourself. Instead, d what you do best, and let these people do what they do best — find you the right person for your job opening.
They are responsive, friendly and efficient. I value my relationship with this company and will continue to do so for a long time to come.