After Three Days on the new job

I'm working at the Office of Technology Licensing (a word that no matter hard I try, I can't spell correctly). After three days, it’s slowly getting better.

For the first day, I was a receptionist. That was it. Pick up the mail, transfer the phone calls. While it was nice to get paid $12 an hour to play Dynomite, it gets real old, real quick. I sent my dad a few emails in the middle of the day, which prompted him to call me later that evening going, "Shouldn't you be working instead of sending me emails about Al-Queda hating Rotary Clubs?"

Eventually, I was forced to something that will haunt me for at least another year: I asked for work. I've set the standard of behavior on which I will be compared for the rest of the time I work there. Sometimes, I am a moron.

The work I'm doing now isn't that exciting, but at least its doing something. Cleaning out databases, correcting false and wrong entries, that type of stuff. It makes the time pass.

Complaints about the job: I'm usually the most dressed up person, but as the person sitting in the receptionist desk, I need to be kind of professional looking. Or at least, that’s the explanation my boss gave me. Since I open up and close, I have to be there at 8, and I have to stay there till 5. That means my lunch break must be an hour. It sounds nice until you try doing it. Its way too long for lunch, especially after years of having 30 minutes, at best, to eat. I wolf my food down in about 15 minutes, then try to find something to occupy my time.

But these are minor things. I knew about them coming in, so its not like it was a surprise. Overall, the people are nice, the work easy and doable, and the environment relaxed. I'm going to try and score some points with the big boss man by bring him the new Muse CD I downloaded this afternoon. He told me the one rule of the job is that any good music you discover must be brought in. This is also the guy who when interviewing me, his first question is "What kind of music do you listen to?"

Tonight, there will be drinking, both in celebration of Alice's imminent departure for Med School and, more personally, the fact that it’s Friday and I finished the first week of my first real job. If that’s not worth drinking to, then nothing is.