Driven Duck Says: Work, Work, Work

By crikey, it's been a while since I've put a post in here. Life updates: I'm finally settled into my new apartment, still vehemently single, and still working in LP. What do all of these have in common? More alone time! Whoo hoo!

To be quite honest, the first few weeks of coming home to a quiet, ratless apartment and making real meals in my own kitchen have been quite wonderful. It's only when I go elsewhere, such as work, where this seems pathetic. All the isolation I don't feel in my quiet apartment or on my adventures alone comes up in droves when I'm at work. For instance, last Friday, one of the HR staff came over to LP to deliver invitations to a baby shower for one of the other HR folks. She wanted to make sure "the whole team" was included. She didn't even address me (actually, she averted her eyes), even though I helped out in HR through the busy holidays. I understand that the role of a temp excludes one from certain perks of being at a company, but to be excluded from "the whole team" was a jab I wasn't expecting to receive.

Let's also take yesterday, for example. We had a volunteer fair at work. I shopped around to see if I could find something meaningful to take up my time. One of the groups was handing out kids' backpacks to be filled with school supplies and returned. I asked to participate (mind you, this is a charitable cause, not for self benefit), but my request was met with, "Sorry, we don't have enough supplies for temps." I mean, I get it, but after working there for nearly a year, it feels strange to have felt like part of something only to be reminded that I'm not.

Right now, what's keeping me on edge about this job isn't that it could end soon but that it could keep going. My boss is going on maternity leave in November, which means I may be recruited to cover into next year. That's easily another six months in a position where there is literally no room to transition to part of "the team." I have really mixed feelings about this. I do get a steady paycheck; I don't get benefits of any kind. I have started to grow accustomed to the area's amenities and the people, but is it all just a grand cage?

Also in question is my trip to El Camino, which I had considered taking after my assignment expired. I don't know when or if it will expire. Some might say "Take the journey; live your dream!" while others would caution "Build your nest egg; journey later." The rumor is that I can only be a temp there for a total of 18 months, but who knows what validity lies in rumors? Either way, the state of things is that I'm getting paid to help out a team to which I don't belong, which makes me feel much lonelier among people than I do when I actually am alone. There's also the alienating issue of my coworkers assuming I'm not only straight but also a womanizer, but that's the subject of a different post altogether. In the mean time, there have been no official talks of extending my position past July 29th, only more rumors. If I have no other offers by then, I will stay; if my time is up with nowhere pressing to go, I will write for a month and walk El Camino in September, Insh'allah.

Re-bloom

I had a really nice surprise today at work. My supervisor apologized to me. It's not something I'm used to, so the occasion really stood out.

Here's the scenario: we had to reorder some record boxes from storage. My job was to search for the box numbers in our database, E-mail them to my supervisor, and she would take it from there. So I did, and I checked it twice, sort of like Santa, but not.

Today, I was informed that I'd ordered the wrong boxes, a big faux pas, because to reorder boxes costs about $50 per box. Though confused, I was sure I had made the mistake out of sheer laziness and prepared to enter the classic area of self-punishment. Still, my supervisor wanted me to re-verify in the database, which I did. Much to our mutual surprise, the numbers were wrong in the database, hence the apology. Much to my greater surprise, the error was not my own.

Over the years, I've grown accustomed to accepting blame for a lot of things, whether or not I'm actually responsible for them. Since my memory of each step of a monotonous process isn't fantastic, I err on the side of criticism because I simply do not have the instant recollection to say with 100% conviction that the error was not my own. At that point, I jump on the criticism bandwagon and start berating my work, my work ethic, my memory, how I'll never really be a good employee, etc. It's basically a frenzy to assure myself that I'm not stupid, just lazy, but not lazy, just tired, but not tired, too stressed, which leads to a whole new surge of criticism and compounds the latter problem.

In the past year, these trains of thought have begun occurring less frequently, but when I do jump on one of them, it does start down a lot of the same tracks. I'm obsessed with assuring people that I'm not stupid, that I'm not lazy, that I'm not mean, that I'm not emotionally invested, that I'm not a writer, that I don't take part in the USC-UCLA rivalry, that I'm not attracted to anyone, that I'm not religious, that I'm not an atheist, that I'm not like a Californian, that I'm not like a Utahn, that I'm not like an American, that I'm not like an Earthling... Toot toot!

And so today, this simple sentence, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blame you," knocked me right off the train. The strange revelation that I did the job right reminded me of one thing that I am: thorough. To me, it was greater than a compliment, because it wasn't intended to be such and was thus devoid of all insincerity or social compulsion, just good manners. It boosted my confidence, and I'm ready to keep doing good work. I mean, hell, they've already extended my assignment by a month and a half, so I can't be that awful, right?

I came home at the end of the day, and found that all three buds on my orchid had bloomed. Most people throw away their orchids after the flowers wither, but I kept this one for a year, and now, it is beautiful again. There's one more thing I can do. I wonder what else is out there.

Supersecret

It is good to be back in the workforce again after the three-week hiatus. It turns out, my name came up in a discussion of temps back at Disney, and one Ghostbusters reference later, they gave me a call.

The return was bittersweet; one of my coworkers had suffered a heart attack and another had been found dead at home a few days before. It's really served as an important reminder that any given day could be the last I see someone and therefore need to appreciate these days more. On the brighter side, my return has been hailed by a storm of delight from former coworkers and even some people with whom I'd never spoken a day in my life. It's kind of cool when people notice you're gone.

In any case, whereas I once complained about being isolated in the center of everything, now I am isolated in the back corner of everything, which suits me just fine, because I have now entered Loss Prevention, or as I like to call it, the Crime Fighting Division! Even though my responsibilities are mostly filing and spreadsheets, it has been really cool so far to have a part in the rounding up of swindlers and vagabonds, Old West style (with additional technological advancements). A sheriff's badge has been suggested. And considered.

On a side note, now that I have to get up at 5:00 for this job, what I thought would be a gross inconvenience has turned out to be very useful. I now have more time in the evenings to write, and so far, productivity is skyrocketing. Again, it is good to be working.