Note to self

Stop buying Craisins and chocolate covered cranberries. Bad bad bad bad bad....

Weekend

I didn't say anything about my weekend! Life has been too exciting lately. I've been working on a pet project in my spare time, but I took a break and did some serious housecleaning last week. It's still not clean, but at least I'm not totally embarrassed anymore.

Saturday afternoon Steve came to town. We checked out the aquarium expansion and the new riverfront and then he took me to dinner. It was good to see him again; I've missed having him around. I don't know what to think about it and decided not to worry about it and just enjoy the visit. The boys were thrilled to see him again and remembered him IMMEDIATELY. So much so that as soon as he sat down T sat in his lap - something he's never done with anyone except me. It really surprised me how well they remembered him considering they hadn't seen him in nearly two years.

Sunday I picked up Jason in Cleveland and we drove up to Knoxville to visit with our friend Ariel and her husband Chris and go to the zoo. We had a great time! Of course - the phone call during dinner from Susan (Jason's wife) who was calling to tell him the oven was on fire livened things up, but all's well that ends well. She and the cats are ok - the stove's element went up in flames but was well contained and eventually extinguished after using nearly an entire extinguisher. Poor Susan! It took them nearly an entire day to clean the extinguisher stuff off of everything.

I'll post pics tomorrow on the picture page. It's way past my bedtime - but I felt guilty for not updating the blog sooner.

So there I was...sound asleep....

I'm now in my second week of training with my new job and it's been quite a change for me. The first week we spent one day in human resources (er - excuse me - People Services) orientation and then went over to our building for the grand tour and first glimpse of our new home away from home. Cubicle sweet cubicle.

Oh

My

God.

"What have I done?" That's all I could think when I first saw it. It was so small - maybe 5 x 5 and one among literally hundreds of cubicles. Thank God it's not in the center of the room or I might not have been able to come back.

I went back the next day and decided that I could make this work. A good night's sleep,a dream that reminded me of how my old job had made me feel, and a long chat with one of my fellow new co-workers who voiced the exact same feelings helped a lot. The one thing I knew I HAD to do was decorate that gawdawful ugly cubicle ASAP. LOL I moved the gargoyle in next to my phone, put some of my photography on the shelf and one on the wall, invested in a few posters from Big Lots, and filled up a drawer with snacks and food (as well as a set of silverware, a coffee mug and a soup mug) and it was starting to feel like it would be okay. Once I mounted my new memory board under the shelf where I could see it regularly, I felt much better. Now the first thing I do when I get there is turn on my undershelf light so the board is well lit. Turning off the light is the last thing I do every work day.

So there I am, with a well dressed cubicle and nothing to do in it. I played around on the intranet and found most of the policy and procedures (discovered that if my work is acceptable I get a raise in 6 months - SWEET!) the online classfieds for employees, set up my email, recorded my voicemailbox message, and started making plans to fly paper airplanes over the cubicle wall at my buddy Debbie when we get more settled in. :-D

THEN they had me sit with another nurse for four of the longest days of my life. Did I get to do anything? Nooooo...... What I got to do was listen to phone calls. Lots and lots of phone calls. Those who know me will find it hard to believe, but yes, even I get tired of being on the phone eventually.

Monday comes! HOORAY! Week two! We start computer class today! 9 am!!!

9 a.m. "Excuse me - why are y'all here? You're supposed to be in new employee orientation."

us - "Ummmm....we did that last Monday".

her - "Well we're not scheduled to start until 3 pm - there must've been a miscommunication. Y'all go on back and sit with your buddies until then."

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

So - they stick me with a different buddy - nice lady, but she doesn't interact with me at all and she's got a lovely near monotone voice. *sigh* I sat with her before and after lunch. It was a lovely lunch...

After lunch, there I am listening in on my brand new headset phone sitting directly behind my 'buddy' (because there's no room any other way) and - you guessed it - I fell sound asleep for almost a half hour. What's really sad is - my buddy never noticed! She turned around about 5 minutes after I woke up and asked me something about a caller and if I remembered what they had said. I told her, perfectly honestly, that I didn't remember.

Today I found out that one person did spot me - but she was another new employee who had been listening in on the calls for FIVE weeks and she totally understood! She and several others all said that they had nodded off - though apparently I'm the only one who's actually taken a nap. I feel bad about it, but honestly....I couldn't help it! lol Thank God I didn't get caught.

Today we actually had computer class. I learned how to toggle between windows, open Outlook, write an email, and edit a word document. *sigh* Oh well, it was better than listening in on phone calls.

I seriously do think I will like the job once I get to do it but this early training stuff is very elementary. They have all our pay information online and I've already seen the info from my first check. *sweet* That was a nice pick-me-up.

Last day at work

This is Tamara, myself, and Nellie at my last day party. Nellie and I have worked together for more than 2 years - I miss her already! She's one of the reasons I lasted two years - lol.

Nellie - you're the bestest!