The trials of getting up at 7am

I went into my boss's office today to drop a letter off and say hi. While I was there, she told me that she's been getting good reports about me and my attitude, and that everyone is glad I'm here. And after a week and half, I have to say that I am too. I have a stable, easy, and well paying job, and for the next year, everything is figured out.

There are two downsides to my job: The time I have to be there, and the monotony of the work. Its not that I mind getting up at 7am. More, I mind the fact that I can't be out until 3am drinking. Last night, I had to leave Oded's at 12:30 after only have three beers. In the past, that would have been a shameful night. Now, I think that’s going to be par for the course.

The monotony will probably be pretty common too. For almost the entire week, I've been slowly making my way through 16 pages of 6 point font tables, matching up data on that sheet with what’s in our database. I can take maybe fifteen minutes of doing that before I need to do something else. Another upcoming project I know about is scanning all the old, pre database licensing agreements into the computer. I gather that will take a few weeks. Yeah, exciting.

But I have to say, overall, I like the job. The people are friendly and helpful, and since I sit on at the very front of the office in my own little alcove, I basically have free reign to do whatever I want. Don't get me wrong, I definitely work, but I also have time to surf the web, read random Wikipedia websites and so on.

Plus, I get to answer phones. I've never been very good at phones, but I think that’s why I get some perverse pleasure at answering them for a living. Plus, I don't know why, but the OTL gets some of the weirdest phone calls.

Last week, I pick up the phone and the lady on the other end goes "Hi. I really need to talk to a doctor. Can you give me the number for the hospital?" I asked her if maybe 911 was a better option, but no, she just wanted the number to the hospital. I tried to help her, and found that you can't find the phone number for Shand's online. I wished her luck, and hung up the phone. It wasn't until after I put the phone down that I realized I forgot to ask why the hell she was calling the Office of Technology Licensing.

Probably the other weirdest call I've gotten was a guy asking about a Herpes vaccine. Apparently, UF is developing one, and this guy had been reading about it on WebMD and wanted to know more. I asked if he was with any company, and he said that no, he's just curious for personal reasons. Yeah, I wonder what those are.