You are here on holiday, and perhaps this is your first southern hemisphere Christmas.  The novelty of being able to stay out late in your shorts and T-shirt in December will very likely lead to a busy social agenda, and late-night drinks on a Monday night will seem perfectly reasonable.  By all means, live it up, but remember these cardinal rules for keeping your temp job over the Christmas period:

1. Don’t stay out so late you don’t make it to work the next day. Your supervisor was not born yesterday. At this time of year, a ‘sickie’ can often translate to ‘still drunk’, and hiring managers are not particularly enamored of temps who don’t show up on time (or at all).

2. Don’t throw a tantrum if you aren’t invited to the corporate Christmas party. You’re a temp.  You are there to do a job, not chuck back free booze and food.

3. Don’t risk it all – there might be times when you just want to throw in the boring temp job so you have more time to go to the beach and to drink with your buddies, but it is a terrible idea to just up and leave an assignment without giving any notice. You risk finding that offers of work dry up as your reputation for being unreliable precedes you.

Remember, a dollar in your pocket is worth it.  Work will likely dry up for two to three weeks from the end of December to early January, and you will be in a much better place financially if you can keep your job over this time.

Tip: if you decide that you would rather not work over the Christmas period, be upfront with your recruiter and don’t accept any assignments where there is an expectation that you DO work over that time.  It is better to take a break from working and know you have not burned any bridges (i.e. damaged your professional reputation) than to risk getting a name for yourself for walking out on an assignment.

Have a very happy holiday season, and remember: don’t text and drink, don’t drink and post to social media, and make sure your friends know that you don’t want to end up on their social media platforms if you are in a sorry state!