First Day Observations

Greetings from the corporate world. I thought I'd share just a few opening remarks regarding the very serious and important nature of my new day job.

Atmosphere: pleasant, quiet. Enough people around to talk to and run my mouth with if I so choose, but not enough to distract me too much. Cubicle with a killer view. The last cubicle I inhabited donned a few travel pics and a newspaper cutout of Daniel Craig. I'm going to try to do better with this one, so if anyone has pics or ideas and wants to contribute to my office space, send them my way.

Supervisor: served in the marine corp for 6 years...looks the part, but nonetheless a very nice man with albeit, a gentle soul. Took me out to lunch today and seems very concerned with, not only my professional development and performance, but also my personal well-being and emotional health.

Receptionist: this woman is kind of ridiculous. A little bit older and very accomodating. Made it her personal responsibilty to make me feel smotheringly welcome today. Actually took the coat off my back to hang it up for me. Soft spoken and slightly askew.

Immediate Trainer: A very nice and patient man, but definitely OCD in an extreme way. One of those eerily organized people...not so much as a hair on his finger is out of place. I believe he could sense my waning attention during the three hours I spent observing him today. My desk after one day is already messier than his. Shit.

Other profiles to come, just wanted to record some of those first impressions that will soon fade into annoyance or friendships or clashes or any ofthose things that mold and harden over the passage of time.

Overall, though...as of right now, I would say that I am very fond of my new workplace and its constituents.

Although, this Clark Kent job, so to speak, should not be construed as my only vocation, for by night I'm still livin' the dream as resident gangster-at-large, Peace, killaz.

'Till the next...

sketchiness

So I was gonna follow up to last blog because it was only half way finished, but this is funnier so maybe next blog I’ll finish whatever it was I was writing about last time.

My street is so fucking sketchy. So a little while ago we were informed by a neighbor that some shady looking gentlemen (one with corn rows) marinating in a burgundy oldsmobile were inquiring about the tenants of ** R street (my house). I looked out the window and saw a burgundy car across the street, so I decided to pack up and go to Big Bear as a diversion while I scoped out the scene. When I walked out the door the car was gone.

As I was walking down the street, 2 ladies across the street started yelling at me "Hey! What time is it?" I didn't know they were hollering at me so I didn't answer and when they continued to shout I stopped and turned to them and they both looked at me like they were going to cross the street and bitch slap me for being insolent. So I reached in my bag for my cell phone and told them it was 3:25. One of them shrieked "3:25, it ain't 3:25!" and they both looked back at me expecting me to check my cell phone again. So I reached in my bag again, looked at my phone and said back, "yes, it's 3:25." The feistier one of the two raised her left eyebrow up so far at me, it practically disappeared into her hairline. So I raised my eyebrow at her just to let her know that I wasn't kidding about the time. She turned around to go inside and said to the other lady (maybe her daughter or her sister) "Come on, let's go, it ain't 3:25!" So then the other lady who wasn't quite to the stoop yet hollered back at me "ay, you stay around here?" And I said "Yeah, I live right up the street, pointing back up to the vicinity of my house. Then.. "You live alone?" ... "No, I have roommates" and then of course the attitude-saturated retort "You better be careful girl!" I nodded in agreement as I turned to be on my away, watching them out of the corner of my eye as the younger lady followed the elder, waddling toward the door and listening as she pecked on about how I must be wrong about the time.

So I continued down the street, headed toward Big Bear and all seemed to be business as usual. No sign of the bergundy oldsmobile. So I've been sitting at Big Bear ever since, with a watchful eye on the southern hemisphere of the street and its ongoings.

A little while ago, a cab driver came in here and asked me if I had a 20 for 4 fives. I don't know why a cab driver would need bigger bills, that makes no sense to me, but I pulled out my wallet and gave him what I thought was a 20 without really looking at it. He walked out only to come back in 20 seconds later barking at me about ripping him off or something. He shoves a one dollar bill in my face all "This a one dollar bill! One dollar! I give you 4 fives!" I told him to back up and I looked in my wallet, realized my mistake and gave him a 20.

But, seriously, was that really necessary to cause a scene over that? After that everyone in here looked at me like I was some sort of con artist. Not my day I guess.

Sidenote: Big Bear started putting out free filtered water, which I think was a good move, considering their exorbitant prices for simple coffee drinks and bite size food they try to pass off as actual sandwiches.

Ok, so I guess I'm about to pack up again and walk back up to my house. And survey the block again for any suspicious characters. I may enlist the help of my friends who are probably still bojangling on their stoops before heading in for the night. They still have about a half an hour of sunlight left to soak up.

Anyway, till the next...

Bexin Hemophin

At long last, a new blog post. Sorry to all you haters who I have kept waiting for over a month, but I operate on my own schedule and I don't respond well to being rushed. You'll get the blog when I'm good and ready to write it and not a moment sooner.

That said, there's a lot to catch up on. The main reason I have not written in so long is that I have been working desperately to find a real job. One day, I woke up and thought I am waiting tables at a 2 1/2 star restaurant and I'm 24 with a college degree. So, I decided to pick myself up, stop wiling away my free hours blogging and such, and get a job. And I did.

You are looking at (well, not so much looking at as reading the thoughts of) the new Docketing Clerk for a big, powerful and very important intellectual property law firm in D.C. (to which I will refer to as ip). So how d'ya like them apples, bitches? Maybe I should get some property rights to this blog. Copyright the shit out of my intellectual property.

I digress...the interviewing process...and the road I traveled to get a job and quit the god awful restaurant that I worked at.

Ok, so stage 1 of finding a job: picking and choosing fairy tale jobs at magazines and TV stations and publications that sound really interesting to me and I would really do well at. This stage takes its course the first couple weeks of looking for a job. Thoughts included in application process: "ooh that sounds fun and interesting...I would really rock that job....I wouldn't mind doing that all day...if I got that job I could really improve and move up in the company...oh shit if I got that job everyone would be jealous of me and think that I have a really cool job..." and various other things of that nature.

Strike 1. Yeah right you're not gonna get any of those jobs. This isn't neverland or a low budget Kate Hudson movie or whatever. You probably won't get call backs or even a courtesy email out of any of these places so get your head out of the clouds and start exploring other options

Stage 2 of finding a job: opening yourself up to things you may not have thought about or are particularly interested in. At this point, I started getting interviews, which was great, except for the fact that I don't make the best first impression. I try my darndest, don't get me wrong, but I usually say or do something to put them off by the end of the interview. I've been told that my voice is "monotoned and sadistic" and my personality "daria-esque" so you can imagine how that usually goes over in an interview. Although occasionally I find someone who seems to follow my step, even through my awkward blunders and rambling narcissism. At this point, I really get freaked out, as the person will soon realize that I am interviewing for a job that I don't want and will likely discover my thinly-veiled disdain.

Thus, the tension between interviewer and interviewee rises. Questioning and rambling persists on both sides, because given the right triggers, I can talk all day. There are always more questions to be asked and more holes to fill with my always sharp and occasionally appropriate wit. Hopefully, interviewer can look past the disdain and see that interviewee is, in fact, shrewd and could do the job better than most if given the chance.

Strike 2. You're not going to get any of those jobs either. Even the ones where you thought the hiring person loved you...you got a second interview, everything was going well, things were looking up. Nope, no job