Monday, January 09, 2006

My first day at work...

It’s been years since I set my clothes out for work however, since today was my first day at my new job, and because I was expected to be at work at 9am, I spent Sunday night preparing my outfit and laying it out.

I even had my jewelry and shoes readied and hanging from a shoe bag and jewelry satchel. I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way of getting to work on time.

I know. I know. 9am is nothing to most of you but you’re talking to someone who has spent 6 years working 10am to 6pm,7,8,9,10+. Yes, I’ve worked over 12 hours in a day on numerous occasions. I’m a night owl.

My new job now requires me to be a morning person. The administrative assistant greeted me this morning with a week long calendar with pre-scheduled meetings, some of which are at 7:30am! Gasp! For those interested, I’m really considering not sleeping the night before these 7:30am meetings.

Lrudlrick surprised me this morning and walked the dogs for me. Thank you. Wait until I tell him that I need to leave the house at 7am Thursday. We may need to give in again and hire a dog walker for the morning walks.

What can I say about starting a new job? It’s not like your first day at school, at least not for me. I was the geek that got excited about the first day of school. I had all my books wrapped and my notebooks were color coded by subject. Still, there is a level of anticipation. As you may know I haven’t been enthusiastic about the whole new job. I don’t understand why I’m not doing back flips, especially after the low morale I’ve had to endure for the past year and a half.

I suppose, the time spent in clockwatcherland has hardened me. I arrived on time,a rarity, to an administrative assistant ready with paperwork to get a new id and security clearance, a mailbox in the mailroom, a working phone, a pc and printer on order and an office with my name on the door! Ok. This stuff might seem like everyday stuff to you but I just spent a year and a half doing all the above for myself. Heck, I spent 6 months without a desk and a pc. For half a year, I used a personal laptop and a dial up connection to work.

Oh, and this is the best part. On all the signs and directories, they had the correct spelling of my surname. Since I got married, I’ve been plagued with people not only spelling my name wrong but also pronouncing it wrong. My husband’s family name is not a hard name however, everyone seems to get it wrong. They skip a syllable. It’s like calling Maria Sharapova, Maria Sharpova.

This was a huge bone of contention with my husband when it came time to get married. The one pre-requisite he had for me was to change my name to his. I’m pretty happy with the name my father gave me but he was quite insistent. So I use my maiden-surname at work but they still butcher it terribly.

Going back to my first day, people came out of the woodwork to introduce themselves to me and I even received a hug from a few people. I’m not sure if I’m working for a cult but the culture so far is much welcomed after my time in limbo.

My office has a large clock. When I say large, pre-laser surgery Pantrygirl can read the time sans contacts. It’s also analog so it ticks. Since I’m still waiting for a pc and my office has no personal items, I feel like I’m in an obscure student film. As I locked up for the day and made my way to the elevator in silence, I pictured a superimposed ‘Fin’ on my back.

It’s too soon to tell whether I’ll hate it or like it here but I’m slowly realizing that I definitely needed something to change. For better or worse, I need this and I’m going to try to be as open-minded and OCD person with anal retentive tendencies can be.