But I still want to be friends.

Come and read about my art-life here.

Come read stuff both Anthony and I post here.

(This is from a lengthy email I sent to my Mom yesterday, but I think it belongs here too. Maybe.)

WHAT I WORE

I wore basically a suit: black pants, black blazer, white shirt, black shoes and belt (it’s reversible so I only had to buy one), with a silk scarf. Basically, as close as I could get to a suit-and-tie without actually wearing a suit-and-tie. It felt a little over the top one the bus and less over the top once I got there, but I will feel okay about dressing slightly less To The Nines now that I’ve seen what the office is like. I think I will feel most comfortable in a suit, there are some kind of high-strung bigwig type people. We are supposed to have a blazer around so that even on “dress down” type of days we can throw them on when important clients come in. And that’s fine, since I want to have a place to keep my transit card, ipod, etc. Although I didn’t plan things too well, so I actually didn’t have a chance to seam-rip open my jacket pockets today. I did cut the back threads that keep the vent closed so that I wouldn’t look like a moron who’s never owned a real jacket, but I would have liked to have pockets today. Ah well. Today I got a bit warm — it was about 80* at noon — but the shirt was not ironed to perfection, so I had to keep my jacket on. I doubt anyone would have noticed, but I would have. Also I was sweating because I was NERVOUS.

WHAT IT WAS LIKE

It was a bit strange, because although today there was a crisis going on and a lot of people were running around like insane things, I was this little island of calm. Relative calm. There was nothing I could usefully do to help the crisis not be a crisis, so for most of the day I was told to “look at the website and the memorize staff”. Yes really. There is a practical reason for this, I think reception will be one of the first Big Things I do and it really helps to know who people are when some confused person calls and says, “I’m looking for Jamie?”. But um. Kind of a weird use of a day. There are only so many times you can look at a bunch of faces and names. I tended to look people up as they walked by, and then I looked up whoever was logged into iChat (an instant message program) which is how people keep up with everyone. We don’t email, and we don’t tie up the phones, we iChat. The world, she is a neat place. Apparently sometimes during staff meetings we will include someone from our other offices, in which case we have a big television screen in the conference room and they will video chat. That is, my office is equipped with things that all the superhero movies have. Rediculous!

WHAT THEY HAD ME DO (THE OVERLY-DETAILED PLAY-BY-PLAY)

I first got there and filled out all the necessary paperwork. Then HR turned me over to IT, where I learned the computer, and I learned I have a desk (which is cool — I wasn’t sure how it would work). He also taught me to use the copier. Then he turned me over to someone near reception, who told me what she did and then she turned me over to someone in accounting, who told me what SHE did. She was about to give me to someone else, but at that point the near-reception lady burst into the room and said “I have an emergency”. There was a big impossible task that needed to be done, the admin who sits in the filing room was notified, and I was dropped off at my desk. By and by HR came back by, taught me to use the copy machine (again), and then let me go back to my desk. Then lunch (see below), then back to my desk. 1pm. By this point the admin sitting next to me felt bad for me and starting talking more about what it’s like to work there, and I offered to help him put tabs in his folders. He had to go cover reception, and then an hour later he came back..and…showed me how to use the copier! Apparently it is very important to know how to use the copier. It’s sort of a swanky, newer version of what we used at the Trib, and it can send faxes and scan things to a PDF (which is really cool), but I mean…once you’ve used a copier like this you’ve pretty much used a copier, right? Maybe not, but at least I will definitely know how. I have both unlocking codes memorized.

At about 3:30 my supervisor, who spent most of his day upstairs dealing with the crisis, called me into his office. He collapsed into his chair and said, “whoooo. Here’s the thing.” Evidently the biggest of all the bigwigs has a new assistant. This B.O.A.T.B.W.s is a bit…difficult to deal with. By which I mean: every single person I talked to today warned me not to take it personally when I meet her and she insults the way I’m dressed or looks at my fingernails and snorts or something. She is an evil thing to everyone, but that’s why she’s one of the best lawyers in the area and she is very good at what she does. Suffice to say: it is no easy task to be her assistant. I have no idea how the guy is staying alive. Apparently his workload is too much. He gets things he can’t finish. Little tiny meinial things. “So what I need you to do for right now,” Super-man said, “is sort of be the secret assistant to this assistant.” he apologized for not being able to actually work with me on the phones yet or anything, but this took priority and will be much better once the assistant gets more used to his job.

And I’m fine with this. Whatever, I can look things up or call people when my boy upstairs is overwhelmed.

So at 3:40 I was actually given a job finally, which was to stay at my desk and make sure he could get a hold of me. About two minutes later this guy iChatted and asked if I could look up a phone number. It was a tricky phone number to get — a VIP frequent flier miles direct number, which they don’t want to give you, they want you to go through customer care — but I got the number finally, and sent it to him so he could get it to Her Royal Highness.

Then HR came by and gave me a stack of binders. The old revised pages had to be taken out and the new revised pages had to be put in. More my hat. It was mostly color-coded and fairly easy once I could parse the instruction sheet, so that was nice. There’s a huge box of them that need to be updated, so I know what I will spend time doing tomorrow.

LUNCH

There is usually an in-office chef. We have a tiny kitchen, and lunch is always provided. Not in a cafeteria type way, but in fact someone goes and gets some ingredients and whips up a meal for about 30 people. So a pretty good deal, although you have to be pretty flexible. You also, at the moment, have to be okay with whatever the high school interns whip together. We don’t have a chef right now. They do fine — today we had a chicken casserole type of thing. In about three weeks they leave and I guess if we don’t get a chef it will be up to the admins (yikes!), or whoever else steps up to the plate. But they make a big deal about this providing a lunch thing, apparently if clients are in the office they can have lunch with us, that kind of thing. Which is kind of cool. The lunch hour is set aside, so when you are done with eating you are free to go do whatever until it’s time to come back. Work is walking distance from the library and many of the things I like downtown anyway, so that’s rather exciting. I spent my remaining half hour on a bench outside people-watching. I need to look and see where the nearest park is.

And no, I don’t think the lunch thing is mandatory, so if I needed to go do something else during lunch I’m sure I could. It’s a nice thing to do though, and a good chance to get all chatty with people without needing to keep an eye on your email.

HOW IT ‘WENT’

I think ultimately…pretty good. My morning was a bit of a muddle: burnt everything in my breakfast, had to iron my shirt (I’d thought it was ironed the night before, but alas,) caught the later bus which made me nervous, and then I couldn’t get into the building because our offices do not open until 8:30 and though I was supposed to be there at 8:15, I didn’t have a key. Luckily the downstairs suite houses a non-profit that opens earlier, and one of their attorneys was all smiles and showed me which door upstairs wasn’t actually locked. (“Don’t worry I did the exact same thing when I first started here.”) So I made it in on time. All the idleness in the morning made me feel kind of strange and unhelpful, but once I actually started getting tasks it was much better. The office itself is kind of…intense. Besides that main lady, my own boss is a little abrasive (his method of getting Eric’s attention is sometimes to simply knock the adjoining wall with his fist and yell his name) but I am assured by everyone that he’s really great, he’s just tough so he can Get Stuff Done. So my own personal day was not that activity-laden, but the frenzy around me still made me a bit jittery. Eric tells me this wears off as you become used to it, and that makes sense.

THE BITS I DIDN’T TELL HER

I had a sinking, awful feeling in my stomach yesterday night about this whole job thing.

My last few jobs have been got in desperation to get out of other jobs. I haven’t in a long time interrupted a period of non-employment for employment and this particular time, while not without worry, was leisurely and filled with art and many things I love. So to eschew that for a day of sitting in a high-strung office was a bit trying. So I think that’s part of the dread, the horrible realization that really, I didnt have fun. I didn’t like it. But then that’s a new layer to it: I’ve never really come home from a job to think, I didn’t like that. Not on the first day. So that’s worrisome. I talk myself out of this by saying the money’s good and it’s only a year-long assignment, but that’s terrible in and of itself isn’t it? One should not do something one doesn’t want just because one does not want to, right?

Then again, my Grandpa always said, “work to live, don’t live to work.” And I don’t. But how does one find time to live when one is drained all day?

I exaggerate. It’s easier to continue to do something after work when it’s summer on the Pacific coast — my day doesn’t end until sundown at 9:30. That’s a long day, particularly when I came from the eastern plains of CO; the Rocky Mountains essentially block the sunlight at about 5pm, no matter the time of year. I worry about winter a little, and I worry that I will become my friend at my old job who would just go home and collapse in front of the TV. Her life literally consisted of this and work only. She didn’t go for a walk in the evening, didn’t go to coffee shops, bars or museums all that often, she didn’t make herself a nice dinner or go out all that often with her boyfriend. I worry about people that do this. I’m a broke shut-in, but at least I go out. I use the library, I visit the farmer’s market, etc. I feel like these are a healthy things.

The bus ride home, while choked with people, helped. At least there was a leisurely drive home over the river with Zero 7 on the ipod. Anthony called and while my words were fast and choppy and manic, like the office I’d just come from, at least I could vent. I did finish the last block (I think) on the quilt, so now all that’s left is to finish assembling things.

And now: eat a breakfast, dress sharp, and bus back in.