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.

He Works Hard for the Money

I learned a valuable lesson in professional behavior today, and it came in a wholly unexpected form: my boss told me to go home early because I work too much. When I told her I still needed to finish these last few projects, she said, "No, you don't. That's my job. Go home."

It's peculiar how, over the years, while my employers have gotten progressively more approachable and accommodating, I have become proportionally more neurotic about doing my job. This means getting the projects done at all costs with minimal lunch time, minimal blinking, minimal breathing, and you can just plain forget about ten-minute breaks. Yes, technically I'm required by law to take full breaks throughout the day, but tell that to my brain.

I've made plenty of mistakes in past jobs, and each one has made me more determined not to make the same one again. When one combines this with five months spent unemployed and living off peanut butter sandwiches and crackers, not to mention my last semester of college spent learning how employers are basically itching for an excuse to replace me with someone better, of course I'm going to rush head-first into work. Of course I'm going to hyperactively request projects and finish them in a blaze and come home at the end of the day utterly exhausted because I felt taking breaks would be a sign of laziness and thus make me more expendable.

It's a difficult thing to digest: being told by my boss to work less, having convinced myself, preposterously, that anyone who is happy in the workplace isn't putting enough energy into their job. It wasn't until last week that I found out I could actually leave by 5:30 if I only had a half-hour lunch. I also found out that it's okay to pour myself a cup of tea using the company's supplies. Even then, I still feel like cutting out at 5:30 is slacking and using company supplies is freeloading. Now I'm not sure what to do with the free time or how to convey that it is technically free time and that I'm not just being lazy, or whether that really even matters. I guess what I'm trying to say here is... cool! Let the ten-minute relaxation commence!