Success on an assignment means getting a good evaluation. Since many of the jobs you will be given are trivially easy, here's some advice on being even better than your supervisor expects, so that they'll want to write a stunning eval about you for the temp agency.
Look professional.
This includes not only dressing to meet the dress code, but looking neat as well: clean-shaven, neat hair, ironed clothes. Nobody likes a scruffy temp. Sorry.
Be amiable.
In other words, kind and likeable. You don't need to be outgoing, chatty, or terribly interesting. But smile a lot, laugh at everyone's dumb jokes, and make chit-chat when it's initiated. Be polite.
Do not show up late.
"I got lost" is not a good enough excuse. Go to the place the day beforehand to make sure you can find it and to see how long it takes to get there. On your first day, show up ten minutes early to show how fabulously professional you are. After that, it's not necessary to be early -- one of the joys of temping is that you're not compelled to do any overtime. Show up at 7:59 AM every day if you like. But never be late.
Manage your boredom responsibly.
Some places will keep you busy all the time. But others, especially receptionist jobs, will give you hardly anything to do.
Your staffing coordinator will tell you not to surf the Internet while on assignment. Yeah right. Everyone does it. The majority of supervisors will be way more anxious if they see you sitting around doing nothing than if they see you casually browsing a professional-looking website. (Tip: To make any site "professional-looking," use Firefox and Adblock all the images.) Any activity involving a pen and paper is also good. I like to write, for example; and I once spent the better part of a day drawing maps for one of my stories.
The key to any freetime activity is to stop it immediately when you're given something to do. This should be a no-brainer, but the key word is "immediately." This includes answering the phone. No matter how riveting the website is, that phone had better not ring twice. It looks really bad. But if you are always efficient and do a good job on the work you're given, your supervisor has no cause for complaint.
(The exception here is, of course, if your supervisor explicitly tells you not to use the Internet.)
On Reading Books
No doubt the boredom-managing activity of choice for many people. I am sorry to say, I don't recommend you do it unless you are given explicit permission: "Feel free to read if you brought a book, or whatever." For some inane reason, a lot of supervisors think that reading a book is a little too distracting for you -- as if you'll be SO absorbed in it that you'll fail to hear the phone ring. But as ridiculous as this is, it still just looks bad.
If you are desperate to read, this would be a good time to get interested in the classics, because you can read a lot of them for free on the Internet (i.e., professional-looking websites). I especially like this site for American literature, because it's all HTML format so you don't have to download anything.
On the other hand, if you are all by yourself in an office where other people rarely stop by, you lucky dog! Enjoy your books.
Remember that you are a guest.
So act like one. Don't help yourself to the coffee and food until it's offered (and it will be). Clean up any messes you make, and if you have time, do a little extra cleaning of stuff that was messy when you got there. Keep your desk tidy -- but if you can't manage that, at least tidy it up on your last day.
And God help you if you make any personal calls on their phone system.
When you're only scheduled to be somewhere for a couple weeks, it's unlikely that someone's going to sit with you for a couple days to show you all the ropes. And yet, you still want to do a great job so you can get a good evaluation. What to do? Train yourself to do the job properly.
1. Find the person or persons who are available to answer all your annoying questions.
Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, calls these your FTAs -- full-time allies. The person the temp agency tells you to report to is usually not the person who will actually be helping and supervising you. You can usually recognize that person because they'll be the first to say, "If you have any questions or get any weird phone calls, let me know." They are usually at about the same rank in the company as you, and their desk is probably within speaking distance of yours. Sometimes you will work with many helpful people; other times, you'll feel lucky you managed to find one. Ask your FTAs all the general questions you have about how the office works -- how to answer the phones, if you need to lock up before you leave, etc.
2. Ask questions to verify vague instructions.
Sometimes, you'll be shown how to do something in great detail. But more often than not, you'll be given confusing written instructions. If the person who gave you the instructions is not insanely busy, just ask them for clarification. If it's the big boss who barely has time to put on their pants in the morning, ask your FTA.
3. Ask questions to verify that you're doing things correctly.
Before you go and print out all 200 of those shiny cardstock place cards for the boss's banquet next week, print out one sheet and show it to your sup to make sure it's what they wanted.
4. Use the Internet.
Whoops! You never learned the proper protocol for addressing a memo to multiple recipients at different addresses! Guess where you can find out.
5. For machines, try to figure them out on your own.
Copiers, printers, strange computers -- you can probably teach yourself how to use them with a little fiddling around. This gets easier and easier as you're exposed to more machines in different places. If you get stuck, you can of course ask your FTA. The two electronics I would advise against trying on your own are the phone and the fax machine. You don't want to accidentally hang up on someone while you're trying to figure out how to take them off hold. And with a fax, you need to know if you have to dial 9, if you have to feed face-up or face-down, etc.
6. Copy other people.
Listen to what your coworkers say when they answer the phone, and do it that way. Take a look at a few office documents to see what font they prefer. Take note of whether people hand-write addresses on envelopes, or print labels from the computer. You can learn a lot by paying attention and looking for details.
7. Ask more questions.
Don't worry about looking stupid. They don't expect you to know these things. It is much better to feel briefly annoying and stupid while you ask, than to feel seriously annoying and stupid after you screw something up.