employablog

And I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, I think this is something that I should get used to.

I feel like there is something big going on tomorrow, but really there is nothing special — but at time same time, tomorrow is a big day.  Tomorrow is May 15th, the day that med school applicants can only hold one acceptance — mine is to Minnesota.  And so, even though everything finally seems to be in the works, I am marking off another big calendar date, the final end to all this application nonsense that has dominated my life, starting, really, in January 2005, when I realized I needed to make some lifestyle changes, make some knowledge changes and really figure myself out.

I did, and now I’m going to medical school, and I couldn’t be happier, and I think that is a perfect reason to not sleep.

Every once in a while, there have been nights like this over this past stretch (read: the densest part of my likkle life to date). A lot of stuff has gotten shaken up inside of me, and on nights like tonight it settles — hard. And I start to get buried in questions, some menial, some greater, from nit-picky romance to second guessery and happenstance.

But I finally have a solid anchor so it all doesn’t sweep me away into the heart-pounding nervous wreck it could before. So on my insomnia nights I can write, draw, read and … well … enjoy some me time, until … well you know

I took a survey today, about my employment satisfaction. One question was whether I felt that staying at my current career would be a way to advance it, and I marked, “Completely Disagree.”

It was not with any animosity, but my job was a nice stimulating way to pay the rent and add some bulk to my resume while eking last minutes with the people I’ve spent the last 4 to 5 years with. Then there was a bubble to fill, on why staying with my current company would not advance my career. I wrote, simply, that I want to be a doctor, surgery probably, and that I currently am not doing that, but that I am fine not doing it for a few more months, because honestly right now I wouldn’t make a great surgeon, since I have no idea.

But I’m ready to start on the next part of my life. My bags are starting to get packed, whether or not I try, and I can feel that in my stomach.

I got an important call on my way to the bathroom. A 612 number not in my library, so I picked it up, because there was only one person it could really be, somone very, very important.

It was the University of Minnesota Medical School, and they were just calling to tell me that they like me.

I interviewed there in mid-December, and I had heard nothing from them. Time passed and hurried, and it felt like I was being broken up with through silence: the easiest way to break someone’s heart.

But even though I’m a member of the Minneapolis Chapter of the Bleeding Hearts Club, my heart instantly recovered.

“I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to the University of Minnesota Medical School,” the University of Minnesota told me. I told them that they made my week, and they did.

Now, I am also in at a school in Brooklyn, where I keep my life, career and happiness, but I have to cosign that away, because the University of Minnesota is too good to turn down, maybe. So I have a nice interal 3-month debate to have, but overall, not a bad debate, more like choosing between Neapolitan and Spumoni, both good things.
But now that this medical school business is over I have six months to live life, save money, ferret it away, and blow it all on a summer of surfing, planting seeds of bleached hair and skin cancer and happy.

Then I will start to be a doctor.

And what follows is cryptic: I fought the law and I won.

I had been looking forward to this day for some time. In a time when a great dearth of interesting workplace happenings has plagued my existence, I saw today as sure-fire material. I mean, is there anything more likely to produce an interesting topic than a mandatory firm-wide sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training?

Our company, as a small and quickly growing firm, has been making baby steps towards full-fledged corporatism. First there was the new office with fancy perks like functioning heat and multiple elevators. Then came the new logo and associated paraphernalia, followed by a new website. But with growth comes responsibility. Or rather, liability. Hence, the firm-wide sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), the training wasn’t quite the comedic gold mine I expected.

I think I was imagining something akin to 8th-grade health class, where we learned that “no means no” and snickered through role-plays about appropriate ways to handle inappropriate situations. In retrospect, it was probably silly to expect that a firm full of overwhelmingly reasonable people would have anything but an overwhelmingly reasonable sexual harassment training.

We learned the history of the federal and state harassment (and discrimination!) case law, and discussed areas where case law is still emerging. We learned that it it is not illegal to age discriminate against someone if they are under age 40. We learned that it IS illegal to ask a disabled person to drive you around in order to receive a better parking spot.

I even found a reason to care about the training. I mean, I’m pretty confident that I’m not going to harass anyone, but I realized this training is important anyways: if the firm gets sued for thousands of dollars, guess who doesn’t get bonuses that year? Everyone.

In conclusion, sexual harassment (and discrimination!) training was not as absurd as I had hoped, and I think that is a good thing.

So … my job has an interesting designation for me, I am an hourly part-time employee, five days a week and 7 hours a day.  If you’re a sharp one, you’ll know this comes out to 35 hours a week.  Beyond that, I am expected to sit in the office from 10 to 6, each day, which comes out to 8 hours .. so how does this California math work out?

Well, lunch is unpaid.  So, lunch then, should take an hour.  Usually this isn’t a problem, now, it’s about to be a big one.  I decided to start packing 4/5 of all lunches, because I’m going to save up money from this job, and travel, and that doesn’t happen as easily when I’m leaking change all over 42nd street on the way to a bougie deli full of tourists and neo-cons.

But bringing a lunch suddenly gives me a ton of time.  There is no time expense.  I open my desk drawer and like that, lunch is prepared.  I’ve been watching TV online during lunch for the past lunches, I guess I could go into our lunchroom, but for the same reasons that a high school lunchroom is a harrowing experience, so is my company’s.  I could do the chill table by myself thing, but not today.  Today I am sick, and when I am sick, I look a little too much like the unabomber.

I could just do work, but that seems foolish.  I feel like a douche reporting “and fifteen minutes” on my time sheet, and would feel even worse doing work for free (unheard of!).  Volunteerism should go to the children, to the bums, and to the mentally deficient.  But not to companies planted firmly in the black.  So I putzed around, I urinated twice, I bought coffee, and then I wrote a blog.

“Beer at four,” popped up on my computer screen. It was an instant message. Like many offices, mine communicates via IM with people sitting literally next to you. Sometimes, I do it the ‘old fashioned’ way, and shout.

Then a second IM clarified. The beer was free, the beer was in the office, and we would be getting paid while we drank it. There would also be a popcorn machine.

But why, and to what purpose? I was doing content and copyediting today, and had a lot to do, so the beer would have to be drank whilst I edited in my little pod. But free beer, that’s just something, something that you can’t buy. So, I copy-edited under the influence. And it was good.

But still, back to the main idea, why was the stuff free? Well, my coworker said, today is dumpster day.

“Dumpster day?”

“Yeah,” and he gestured to the big dumpster facing his cubicle.

Dumpster day happens twice a year, we purge dated books and paper and trash. It’s a pogrom of paper products. But still, why the tub of free beer? Why the carnival popcorn — the dumpster made sense. But I can clean without beer, in fact, one could make the case that I even clean better without.

“Well, we have the beer because it’s dumpster day.”

Circular.

And it was the same sad clown story from everyone I pestered, save a few lost souls like me, beer in hand throwing caution to the wind holding on to a stupid grin, out of the can, into the man — on dumpster day.

The day after Labor Day, I arrived at the office in a pair of black pants and my favorite pink and black striped shirt. Because I am so fond of this particular attire and how hip yet professional I believe I look in it, I had worn the same outfit for each of the three rounds of interviews it took to get this job. But hey, they must have liked it or I wouldn’t be here, right?

Employee training consisted of inching through an intimidating black binder, one section at a time, in hour-long sessions led by the people who in a week would be my coworkers, but at the time seemed like idiot-savants confidently babbling incoherent explanations of accounting conventions, financial statements, Excel procedures and Powerpoint styles.

It didn’t take long to realize that I was the idiot and that it would be really hard to fake ‘savant.’

After ten hours of this I was simultaneously hoping for the end and terrified by what the completion of training would imply about my capability to provide valuable services to the company. The final presentation was on company policies, concluding with a brief discussion of the company dress code. Finally, something I felt equipped to handle. “Alright,” our Managing Director finished. “Any questions on this?”

I looked down at my shirt and smiled. “Nope.” With that, we left the conference room, ostensibly fully initiated and productive members of the team.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I couldn’t wear the Pink and Black shirt again for at least another week.