#23: A month later and I'm still not wearing pants

Have you ever had a dream that you're somewhere public and you suddenly realize you're not wearing pants? The embarrassment as you fumble to try and rectify the situation before anyone realizes your mistake, even in a dream, is not an easily forgetable feeling. Especially when you've been feeling it every day for the past month.

That's how long I've been at my new job. And that's how long I've felt like I've been walking around without my pants on. Not that I have been. I have been able to get myself to work fully clothed every day so far (even though some days it feels like a major accomplishment).

I get up in the morning at 5 am, leave the house as close to 6:30 as possible and arrive at work around 7. From there it's all a jumble. I'm still not sure yet what's expected of me, so I sit and mess around with the programs I'm expected to learn, or work on projects I've already been given until someone asks me to do something.

Except people keep asking me to do things. Things on top of things on top of things. (So this is what work is really like!) And despite my fervent plea that I really know nothing (Nothing!) about what I'm doing, they keep asking. It finally got to the point that last Friday I said, "No. I can't take on any more. I'm making most of this shit up as I go. I cannot possibly handle any more shit-making-up right now." Or something along those lines.

Mostly I get to play in Quark, Pagemaker and Photoshop. This means I get to play with text and photos and put them together to make them look pretty. Which is awesome. I love making things look pretty. What is annoying is that I am, once again, a "tie it all together" person. I have to wait until everyone else has done their part before my making things pretty can begin. As I learned in college though, I work best under pressure. And I love being able to see something through to fruition. Holding a finished binder in my hands, I feel like I have really accomplished something.

Of course, when I'm holding that binder, waiting for Sales to call with pricing and that binder has to go out to the customer TONIGHT and the last shipment is at 6 PM and it's 5:45 PM on FRIDAY and I was supposed to go home at 4 PM and I have to meet my friends somewhere SOON, the job has a little less appeal.

But then I come back the next week and have a day to just sort of unwind before any new projects start and it's ok. I Photoshop a few pictures, I answer email, I print up an office copy of the project I shipped out the week before and admire my work.

The work that I'm still making up as I go, but apparently doing an ok job at.

So maybe if I keep pretending that my metaphorical pants aren't missing and that I do know what I'm doing, no one will suspect. I keep telling myself, "Give it three months and you'll know whether or not you'll like this. Whether or not you'll be good at this." Three months seems like a long time until I stop and realize I've already been here a month. Some days that month feels like forever, other days it feels like I just got here.

Things are looking up, up here.

(Except for Sir, who broke his arm while teaching me how to snowboard last weekend. Poor guy is in a full arm cast right now. The ski patrol gave us free passes for lift tickets and rental for our next trip this year. Unfortunatley Sir will be in a cast until mid-April, so that pretty much nixes our snowboarding adventures until next winter.

Aside to Sir: No you are NOT going snowboarding while you still have your cast on. And if you do, I'm not explaining to the ER doctor why your *other* arm is now broken.)

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