Temp Agencies Can Fire You At Will

I hate working for temp agencies because their clients can literally fire you if you sneeze too loud (exaggeration but you get my point). Typically temp agencies (from my experience as temp) will not fire their temp unless the client fires the temp (which is what happened to me today). Once that happens, you are temp toast with your temp agency. Happened to me today and I'm P'O'd about it BIG TIME. After 6 months on the job, many red flags from my co-worker that I tried to address with my supervisor (who proved to be a big fat liar), I got let go for reasons I don't consider valid. So I went to see an employment lawyer at a walk-in law clinic but he didn't really have any worthwhile advice for me, since I live in a "fire-at-will" state, where the employer doesn't have to provide a valid reason to fire you.

Has this ever happened to anyone else while temping?

Sure I can join other temp agencies (already emailed my resume to several but that is not a reliable source of income), but I really just need to find a stable job. It's been seven months since I left grad school, and I'm FREAKING OUT b/c I have enough $ for rent, but that's pretty much it. I had to apply for energy assistance today so that the utility company won't shut off the heat in my apartment, and contact an aunt in another state who the family considers "unstable" (she's cuckoo, to put it mildly and makes irrational people look sane, if you catch my drift), because she has an empty house (my cousins are all married with children -- this is on my mother's side) and would take me in with my cats rent-free for a few months. Problem is it's a small town, and so I have to assume my job-prospects would be horrible.

I have an acquaintance I could move in with but she's allergic to cats so I'd have to find new homes for cats I've bonded with for the past 15 years which isn't going to happen. So it looks like I may have to move in with my crazy aunt who lives out of state (I'd have to borrow money to move there too, and would have no income upon arrival either).

So I really don't know what to do at this point. My state's resources are fairly limited -- they like to help single mothers and families with children, but if you're a single adult, you're pretty much screwed out of benefits aside from unemployment. There are nonprofit agencies who hold rent lotteries but the effin caveat is that you have to have an eviction notice to enter those rent lotteries, and then you're not guaranteed rent b/c it's a lottery and they "draw names."

Oh, and I don't have savings (grad school student for 5 years) or credit cards to live off so don't bother suggesting that.

If I can find 2 part time jobs that seems like my only realistic choice at this time. But I have 4 weeks to do that and come up with January's rent.