Practice is a Good Thing

Today I started my “orientation” schedule. If you have children, you may have found it helpful a few days before vacation was over to start trying to get them back on a bedtime/getting up in the morning school schedule, the idea being, it won’t be such a big ordeal the first day back. Same thing works with us grown-ups. I need to be on the job at 8:00 am in a city several miles from here. So today, I was up early, had breakfast, and left for “work” by the time I thought I should in order to make it on time. I’m sure glad for practice, as had I done this my first day, I would have been at least 15 minutes late by the time I found the school I was to work at. I actually will be at 4 different schools, so I located them all with the aid of MapQuest, then returned home via a different route, which shaved 7 minutes off my time.

Don’t you hate the first few days of a new job, and particularly the very first day? You are someone with no orientation, direction, or “home”, and dependent on the kindness of others to tell you everything, even where the bathrooms are and where you put your lunch until whenever someone tells you it’s time to eat it. Then the first week of a new job, depending on what you’re doing, you either dive right in headfirst in unfamiliar water and hope you survive, or you must “shadow” someone and observe. Or a combination of both. Shadowing is interesting if you have as a mentor someone who enjoys working with newbies, and who doesn’t mind answering questions. But if, as I did in a previous job, you have someone who already doesn’t like the job, and now resents this new, fresh-scrubbed face in their office watching what they do, it can be difficult for both the newbie and the seasoned veteran.

I had an email from a friend who stated that her computer was having problems displaying this blog. She said she basically had a white blank screen, and was only able to view the blog toolbar, and the rocks at the bottom of the page. Let me know if you are having problems viewing it. I don’t know what I’ll do about it, but I may be able to contact someone at blogspot if this continues to be a problem for everyone.

So what are you currently reading? I just finished “Nickel and Dimed-On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. Extremely interesting. Currently reading: “Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified” by Robert O. Friedel, MD.