Workin' girl

Yay! The first (4-day) week of work is done! I am soooo tired. Lucky I came home to cat vomit on my bed to help relax me...

The work

So far, I've only been shown how to do one thing. Which I have done over and over and over again in the past 4 days. Hundreds of times. As you can imagine, this is not very exciting. On the other hand, I have been praised for working quickly and accurately, so yay for me. That bodes well for successful completion of the 2-week trial period. I hope next week they show me how to do more stuff, because it's probably not great to already be super bored after less than one whole week of work :( Honestly, not to be ultra-negative, but there have been many times this week where I've thought "I have a Master's degree in THIS?!?" It is literally: scan barcode, check the PDF looks ok, tick a couple of boxes, add a name and date, change a couple of drop-down menu options, scan next barcode...

I have my own barcode scanner and printer though! #everygirl'sdream

The colleagues

We have The Boss, let's call him Michel (I will probably forget these names later). He's quite good looking but is in a different office, so I don't see much of him. On the first day I had to sign a confidentiality agreement and he goes "oh, you just write your name? You don't have a real signature?" (with accompanying scribbly motion). Yes, fine, I have a child's signature, thanks for pointing that out. I think I got my first bank card at about 13, and after a while you're pretty much locked in to your signature, unless you change your name. Not only is it unsophisticated, it's also really *long* having to sign my full name. I get a cramp if I have to sign more than one document at a time! And it never fits in boxes on forms. But anyway, I read once that a legible signature is more fraud-proof than a scrawl, so suck on that, Mr. Grown-Up Signature. Other than hitting a signature sore spot, though, he seems very nice!

Moving on, in my office there are two women and a guy, all around about my age. Honestly though, I feel like I come from another planet than these women. They are both married with a toddler and building/renovating their first homes, and 80% of the conversation (and there is a LOT of talking going on) revolves around that. Especially the kids. If you want to hear the entire plot of a children's book recounted in great detail, or see a demo of a 2 year old's poo face, come work with me. It's pretty painful.

In between the insufferable kid-chatter, however, they are nice people - friendly, patient if I make French mistakes and interested in learning more about me and my culture, which is all good. I feel already like I've known them for more than a week, probably because of all the talking!

The office man, on the other hand, seems to see me as a kindred spirit. This manifests itself in rolled eyes when the other two are going on about stuff and questions as to how I'm putting up with the girls when they are not in the room. It's nice that he thinks we're on the same wavelength (and I do probably have more in common with him, from the bits of conversation we've had thus far), but I am a bit nervous of being lured into bitching about the other two every time they turn their backs! (Please note this, everyone who thinks men never gossip or bitch.) Besides, they are actually nice people, even if I find anecdotes about children a colossal bore. He's also a bit of a mumbler (pot calling the kettle black there) which means I generally have to ask him to say everything twice. Sometimes three times.

Adapting

As I said, I have been exhausted this week! I feel like I'm 50 years old, and/or have been doing manual labour all day, rather than a 30 year-old sitting in a chair. (I really do despair for what I'll be like when I'm old...) However, so far waking up in the morning hasn't been too difficult. Whether this is due to early, exhausted bedtimes or the Sleep Cycle app I bought (it monitors how heavily you're sleeping according to how much you're moving around and then it wakes you up up to 30 minutes before your alarm time, when you are in a light sleep phase) I don't know. Although I've been tired, I've run errands every day this week after work, whereas there have been plenty of times in the past year I've been unable to bring myself to do one thing in a day despite having all the time in the world. So that's good.

Hopefully next week I'll be less tired and I will be given more interesting things to do! I don't think anything will change on the King Biscuit Kid Chat Hour, so will just have to learn to live with that one! And now for some post-work wine :)