Temporary Jobs

When Gene R. Howard got a job delivering mail for the post office more than three decades ago, it was supposed to be a temporary position to help pay college bills. But today--34 years later--the Ventura man is still an employee of the vast network that delivers the nation's mail. And he was recently named area vice president for the U.S. Postal Service's Pacific area, a gigantic postal region that includes all of California and Hawaii.

On paper, Zachary Salzmann wouldn't have impressed a potential boss. Sure, he had a newly earned college degree in business and accounting, but his job experience was nothing to brag about. As a student at UC Santa Barbara, he earned cash during summers doing "typical temp work"--sweeping floors at a construction site, assembling parts at an auto plant, sorting mail at a discount food warehouse. "It was kind of pathetic," he said.

It didn't take Luke Walton long to start popping up in living rooms. The Lakers forward has jumped into his temporary job as an assistant coach with the University of Memphis, making his first home visit recently to help the Tigers recruit Alex Poythress, a Kevin Durant clone who lives near Memphis and is also considering Duke, Florida, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. "I told him my story," Walton said, sharing with the recruit how he went from a solid college player at Arizona to an eight-year career with the Lakers.

They were lined up by the score early Wednesday morning, even before the doors at the downtown post office in Long Beach opened for business. Standing in the queue were a 19-year-old who had just lost his minimum-wage job, a 63-year-old unemployed machinist and a 24-year-old single mom. They had all come for the same thing: the chance to apply for a temporary position at the booming twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, with starting pay at $20.

The University of Massachusetts has joined forces with a Japanese job agency in an attempt to match U.S. students with temporary jobs in Japanese companies. Students from the university and possibly a dozen other schools throughout the Northeast will be hired to work for three months to a year in Japanese companies after a little training in patience, humility and Japanese etiquette, according to the program's founder.

Pettepiece's article really angered me. What was this writer doing for five weeks while he waited for the commission check? Did he ever consider working at any job, even temporarily, to pay his immediate bills? If he had bothered to try, there are literally thousands of jobs available for someone who wants to work. This would temporarily give him money to buy at least the basics. I've been poor before but I have always found temporary jobs to get me through lean times. I have absolutely no empathy for Pettepiece.

For many students, summer is a time of lazy vacations or temporary jobs. For a group of scholars from Korea, this summer will find them studying music at Cal State Northridge. Beginning today, 60 students from the Seoul Superior Conservatory will spend five weeks in private sessions with CSUN music faculty. The group of students, which includes pianists, vocalists, guitarists and composers, will also participate in classroom discussions on subjects such as music technology.

Qualcomm Inc. said it is cutting 700 temporary jobs and that second-quarter earnings will fall short of first-quarter levels due mainly to canceled orders from South Korea customers. The San Diego-based communications company did not detail how much earnings would fall. In the first quarter the company reported earnings of $36.7 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, on revenues of $785.8 million. In the comparable year-ago quarter it posted profit of $16.7 million, or 23 cents.