First, I hate to say it, but the reason temps get little respect is that, on the whole, most are very unreliable. I've worked with temps (both as a permanent, and as a temp myself) who show up late without excuse on a regular basis, or not at all and seem to think nothing of it. I had one guy who knew exactly the time frame he was hired to cover - my vacation - and after 2 weeks of training, 4 days before I flew out called to say he wasn't coming in... and never did again.

I've had temps who go out to lunch for 2 hours and only write a half-hour on their time sheet. When I temped as part of a two-person reception team (there to answer phones in a busy office), one girl would have hour-long personal phone conversations, instead of doing her job of helping me answer the incoming calls!

I had one girl who was hired specifically for a 2 week, 9-5 time frame who showed up at 10 or 10:30 (on the days she showed up at all, was only 55% of the 10 days) and inevitably wanted to leave early for all sorts of various reasons.

I've also worked with temps who's attitude made it blatently clear that they thought they were too good to be temping, or who made it so difficult to get along with them that it interfered with doing my own job.