I do promise a trip report eventually but since I’m already forgetting the sequence of events it might be a while.

In the meantime I’ll share what happened today at work.

On my morning break I had my breakfast that I had cooked up this weekend.  I was feeling particularly hungry so I microwaved a bag of rice.  You know the kind, they are in the aisle with all the different kinds of rices.  They are in a little pouch, precooked but don’t need to be refrigerated.  Zap ’em for 90 seconds and you are good to go.

I ate half the bag with my breakfast, folded it in in half and placed it in the fridge to eat the other half for lunch with my chicken and green beans.

At one, Paula and I headed off to Walgreen’s instead of walking(bad Kelly!) and picked up a couple of things. When we got back the lunch room was full and there was a line for the microwave but I started getting my stuff from the fridge to get in line.

I grabbed my chicken and green beans and reached for my rice but it wasn’t there. Hmmm…odd. I moved things around and looked behind items thinking someone must have just moved it. Nope. No where to be seen.

Well, maybe I had a brain fart and put it in the other fridge even though I NEVER put anything in that fridge. Checked that one and no sale.

I started to get vocal. It is not an unheard of thing to people eat other peoples food at my work. Unfortunately, it isn’t something that is exclusive to my place of employment. I have seen evidence of this happening at pretty much every job I have had in my adult life. I don’t understand it and I don’t approve of it and it’s kind of sad that I’ve grown to accept that it happens.

As I’m grumbling about how I can’t believe someone ate my rice people start asking me what is wrong. My response was met with a chorus of “NO WAY!” and “I don’t believe it!”

Finally someone said: “Check the trash! If they ate it they had to throw it away.” So I looked into the garbage and there it was, covered in coffee grounds with the RICE STILL IN IT!

It’s not that I approve of or condone eating someone else’s food at work but I guess if someone is STARVING and has no money or no food…but even then, ask someone! I have no problem sharing my food. But to just take someones food and throw it in the garbage? WTF????? It was neatly folded up and had only been cooked two hours prior. It was plain rice so it’s not like had a smell to it. Why would you do that? I don’t get it!

What did the rice do to you to make you want to throw it in the trash? Was it mocking you? Calling you names? Saying particularly bad things about your family members?

Seriously??

Ug.

My first paycheck from my new job will have overtime on it! This may not seem like a big deal to you but when you come from working where I worked before, it is. At my old job, even if you worked OT you couldn’t claim it. Big nono.
Yesterday was end of month at the new job so we had to get everything squared away and make sure all the invoices would go out. It was kind of hard for me since I still have no official training and have only picked up on a couple of things here and there. But they gave me enough work to keep me busy until seven at night. My very first ten hour work day. Heh. My sup actually told me I could go home around six or so and I said that if there was more stuff that I could help with than I would so she loaded me up. 🙂
I certainly didn’t mind since finishing last night meant I didn’t have to go into work today.
I have one complaint about my new office building. The bathrooms are numerous but they all only have three stalls. That’s it. In a facility that houses 500 employees, the bathrooms have three stalls. It’s like Grand Central Fucking Station in there!
I am the type of person that when I have to go, I have to GO. I am all about the courteously flush and all that but these toilets have zero water pressure. You have to flush two or three times just to get the toilet paper to flush down sometimes. So every time I go in to do my business there are people in there or they walk in right after I get in there. I hate it. But I guess if that’s my only complaint so far it’s not too shabby.
I know I’ve gushed about the break room before but I discovered that one of the vending machines is for frozen foods. Frozen dinners, ice cream bars…YUMMY! And they have this neat little hot cocoa machine that you just press a button and you have a piping hot cup. Yeah, so I’ve led a sheltered life but this to me is very cool.
So overall so far the job is good. The people I am finding are a bit indifferent. I smile. It’s what I do. If I pass you in the hallway, even if I don’t know you, I will smile at you and maybe say hello. It’s in my nature. A lot of the people in my new office don’t smile. They just stare blankly at me when I walk by them and smile at them. It kind of creeps me out. I mean, how much of an effort does it take to smile? *sigh*
I’ve been managing to get to work on time every morning despite the horrific traffic that I now face. It’s been kicking my ass at night though. I get home and just want to crawl into bed at six thirty. I am the kind of person that will sleep an entire weekend away if you let me so this getting up at six thirty in the morning shit is for the birds. I do it though. Rob said last night that he was very impressed and proud of me that I have been doing this.
“It’s almost like this job is making you…responsible!”
Very funny wiseguy.
If you don’t know me…let me fill you in. I am the Queen of late. I was born two weeks late and my mom said it set the pattern for the rest of my life. I worked in my former job for four years and was probably on time a handful of times. The new job has a very strict policy on tardiness. It’s going to take some getting used to but I will. I have to. I really like this job and I want to stay there.

Sooooooo….I started the new job. I’m not sure where to begin.

I go there on time (if you know me at all, you know this is a major feat for me), and  must have looked very lost as a gentleman approached me and asked if I was a new hire. I said yes and he directed me towards a meeting room.

I spotted Kat and DD right away and scurried over to them to sit down. DD told me she had been worried since “we are the queens of being late”, but we both managed to be on time.

We were handed folders and paperwork that needed to be filled out. There were about fifteen of us in there I think…maybe more. As we filled them out we broke off in groups of four to get our ID badges. Already it is quite a switch from my old job where I didn’t get a picture badge for like four or five months. After a horrid picture we went back to the room and continued to fill out paperwork while everyone else got to get their badges.

I was a little concerned initially that after the trainer I had at my old job I would find the trainers to be stuffy, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. There were four of them. G, C, K and R. G was the head of the trainers and led most of the training that day. They were all very funny and they joked with each other constantly. You could totally tell they love what they do and enjoy people who are a little chilled out and not so rigid about the whole “new job” thing. It was nice.

They briefed us on the “mission” of the company and all that good stuff for about an hour and then we played “bingo”. It was basically a break-the-ice-and-get-to-know-you game. The bingo sheet consisted of questions like: “Who has size 6 feet?” or “Who is left handed?” That sort of thing. We had to go around to all the other new hires and ask them the questions and then write their name down on the square. Once we had them all filled out then we got “bingo”. It was actually fun. There were only two people that admitted to snoring (that was one of the questions) and I was one of them. 🙂 After we were all done we went around the bingo board and we all shouted out the names to the questions and if there was a story behind it, it was told. It was quite fun.

We took a fifteen minute break and then it was back to the training. They covered the list of the higher ups and managers and the departments and then we got a tour of the place. It’s really a lot larger than I thought it would be. The break room was enormous!!!! They have like six or seven vending machines. One for sandwiches, one that had things like hot pockets and ramen noodles (of all things!), one for bottled soda, juice and milk, one for canned soda, one for snacks and one that I cannot remember what was in it. Two industrial sized fridges, seven microwaves and all sorts of other gadgets and gizmos.

The place is a bit of a maze but I am starting to get used to it now.

After the tour we broke for lunch. Kat, DD, our new friend Mel and I all went to a Mexican place nearby and got a bite to eat.

Back at the office we switched meeting rooms and went through some more training. I think they saw after an hour or so that we were going a little stir crazy because they said we should play another game.

We played “hot potato” but with a koosh ball instead. Basically we picked a topic and then had 30 seconds to name an example of the topic and pass the ball to the next person. The person holding the koosh when “time” was called was out. DD whined that she didn’t know anything so she didn’t want to play and we all laughed.

The topics ranged from fruit to movie stars. I was called out on the president’s category. I froze when I was told my guess had already been said.

The last two came down to ID and DD. The category was actors and actresses and DD got a major case of the giggles when she couldn’t guess anymore and blurted out “EMILIO ESTEVES!!!!” I thought for sure she was going to lose because she couldn’t stop laughing but she managed to pull out a victory! YAY!

Of course the trainers started to joke with her that there was clearly an Emilio Esteves story that we hadn’t heard yet. DD told me later that the real reason she got the giggles was because in her mind she was thinking of Ally Sheedy and she just couldn’t bring herself to say it. 😀

Anyway she won this calculator thingie that opened and folded itself up automatically, a little spiny jelly animal and a tiny eraser.

By the end of the day I was just soooo tired. I guess all those days of doing nothing but surf the net really didn’t prepare me for an eight hour day again.

My training class was comprised mostly of one department. There were only three of us not going in said dept; DD, another guy and I, all of us in a different one. So today the three of us sat in our own departments and watched others do their job while the others trained for their own department.

They stuck me with a guy that really wasn’t into training me or anyone. He had taken Monday off and was behind in his work and he clearly didn’t want to be slowed down by having to teach someone. So I watched him for an hour or so just do his work with out much explanation.

He would get up and his cube neighbor Pat would talk to me. She was fairly new too. Just out of training and she wanted to let me know that she was there if I needed her. She told me that when she first came out of training and even before, no one would even speak to her. She made a huge effort to try and help me.

Finally DD grabbed me for a smoke and when I came back the guy I was training with wasn’t at his desk. Pat went over to the sup and when she came back she said: “Kelly you can sit with me. I don’t know it all but I will try and explain it as best I can.” So that is how I spent the rest of the day before the HR meeting.

My boss came along and assigned me a desk so the rest of the time was spent clearing out this old person’s desk. Poor Pat was saddled with most of that.

I went to lunch with Kat, DD, and Mel again and then we went for our H/R meeting. It was long but the HR lady was super cool and nice. We were all itching to get out of there and she let us out early after she covered the class.

So far I think it is going to be a good experience…and I hope to prove myself right. Wish me luck!