Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nine to Five

(subtitle: how to start a new job, suddenly become totally incompetent, and buy nothing new)



Whew. My first week at the new job is over. It will get easier from here, right? Not that it was a bad week. It just had a lot of hours in it.

Here's what I learned this week:

1. If you go to the front door, which is locked, and stand there looking like a dope for 10 minutes, the security guard will eventually come open the door for you.

2. The normal people all use the back door.

3. Even if you only live 10 minutes from your office, you do not have enough time to drive home, enjoy a leisurely lunch, put your feet up, get a little fresh air, recharge your mind, and return to work.

4. You may if you are quick like a bunny have time to drive home, frantically throw together a grilled cheese sandwich, eat it standing up, and return to work.

5. The normal people all eat at their desks.

6. If you have been doing a job for ten years, do not assume that you know how to do that job. There are helpful tools nowadays such as "project management software" that add a whole new dimension to your day, causing you to receive emails every 15 seconds which require your urgent immediate attention and prompting three or four hundred visits to your project manager's office to ask intelligent questions such as "So, is a job folder, like, an online folder, or is it actually a folder folder?"

And last but not least -

7. It is possible to go from slouchy, unkempt freelancer to stylish, snappy office worker without buying anything new. But only if you have a stylish, snappy sister who wears the same size and who is a fabulous eBay shopper and who is willing to pack up a box of cute outfits and ship them to you. Thanks Monica!!!!!

Only 477 weeks till I can retire ... but who's counting?

~~~

4 comments:

The Retired One said...

Don't worry...it will get easier...pretty soon they will hire another "newbie" and you can make fun of her/him and the pressure will be off of you....ha

PCDee said...

Congrats on the new job! Hang in there, it will all come together!

Fran Hill said...

Guess you're busy. Missing your regular posts! Just dropped by to let you know that Being Miss has become Being Me and you may need to unfollow then follow the new link to my name. But I guess that might wait a while until things calm down! Hope it's going really well ...

Jenny said...

Wow. Sounds like a big change. I bet you'll have it all down perfectly in no time!

Christmas contest

We're having an office decorating contest at work! With prizes! So in my usual quirky way, I'm being as competitive as possible. ...