New Job

It has been a loooong time since I have worked in a regular office. Not a library or a university, but a corporate office. Wow. I am beat. It's Wednesday night and I'm wishing desperately for Friday, the day when you are set free. Free! Two days of glorious freedom. I long for it so. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the job and the upcoming medical coverage, but I forgot how soul-sucking life in corporate America is. My office isn't more soul-sucking than any other. And it's a big enough firm that I don't feel like it resembles the show The Office in any way. Well, maybe a couple of ways. But the people are super nice. Time card technology sure has changed. I type in a code number and then a machine scans my palm to verify my identity. Like freaking futuristic spy stuff. But the job itself isn't fulfilling like my other jobs have been. Maybe when I get further into it, I'll find something to love. Mostly it consists of math and "dealing with difficult people via phone" skills. I honestly don't know how I got placed in my department, unless it's one of the universe's funny jokes. Har har universe. Right now, though, I love paychecks. I mean, I love them so much! I can't wait for my first one. I'm going to get myself a manicure and a pedicure and after I'm going to have one of the big blended mocha frappachinos while I read a new magazine. Mmm.....can't wait.

I take the bus every day. I am a bus person now. In LA, bus people are a whole different deal. I would never have taken the bus in LA. I would have made someone drive from 50 miles away to pick me up if necessary. It wouldn't even have occurred to me. And had I called someone 50 miles away, they'd be bummed on having to make the drive, but asking me to take the bus or even referring to it would not have been an option. The buses there generally were believed to have held degenerates, weirdos, and homeless folk who like talking to themselves. The only buses I ever road in California were in San Francisco (aka Sweet Lady's fantasy dreamland).

Here, though, the bus is the major mass transit. The subway is actually not as useful. I haven't been on it once. Trains do run out to the further outlying areas of the city, and up and down the two major arteries, but the bus is how you get around. People are generally nice on the bus, but once I got on as school was getting out and had to sit amongst 30 teenagers. Teenagers are frightening just in theory, so to be so close to them created a super frown, like a Charlie Brown super frown. I had to hear them talk. About movies, dating, cell phones, and football. Thank god for vodka.


Generally, I am brain dead when I get home. Yesterday, I got into bed with my laptop at 8:30 and had to put it down and go to sleep at 10.  What a baby. I gotta toughen up. At least there are perks. Yesterday we were all let go early at 3:30, which I was told was a really rare circumstance. The reason? The Phillies are in the playoffs. And when I left the office and entered the streets, it was full of people also leaving work. It looked like 6pm out there. Everyone took off to go see the game. Nutz.


Sigh, I actually have to stop tying this now because I have to go to bed soon so I don't wake up haggard. I'm trying to look professional and not too shell shocked. Nobody has seen my tattoos yet. I'm establishing "nerd identity 001" for the first few weeks.


Good luck with the rest of the week people. I'm blogging sporadically until my brain resumes normal functions.