In the Loop. Stupid.

Dear Internet,


Yesterday was the first step towards being a real eating, breathing and working human being. By first step I mean I got out of bed, put on dress pants and a nice sweater, heels (believe it or not) and lugged two (yes, two bags) to an office in the loop for my first day of work at a new company. The first few days at a new job are really a trial. And by trial I mean a court case. You are presented, as, presumably, a juror for the first several days and weeks, with never before seen evidence into a situation that you had no a priori knowledge.

During the interview phases one learns minimal details into a company: what you will be working on, who you will be reporting to, if the company is public or private (and therefore revenues depending on that information), goals, and, hopefully, what is really expected of the position. Whether they want to or not, interviewers are often unable or incapable of truthfully expressing some critical components of the role, the company, how they relate, and of course the politics of a company. We all know this, or at the very least, should know that.

Gaining more truthful, or even downright illicit, information is difficult, if not impossible. Which is exactly why during the first few weeks of employment within a new organization new hires are total, bumbling, and at times, idiotic weirdos.

So with that, I take all new corporate challenges within the first weeks very simply. Learn the industry, figure out who is important and who is not, learn who will help you and who won't, and last, but certainly not least, worry about the most important things. What, mind you, are the most important things? I will tell you. Hold your horses.

1. Attempt not to fall and bust your ass on ice.

Since you will be wearing dress pants, a suit, and/or a skirt, walk cautiously at all times as you may fall for no apparent reason, particularly if you are accustomed to wearing sweatpants (Pajama Jeans if you're lucky), tank tops, and slippers, which are much easier to move about in. Not to mention, more comfortable than gabardine or wool. Heels particularly are dangerous the first week back in the real world as you have likely experienced serious calf muscle atrophy.

2. Determine how to get home at various times of the day, factoring in limited service times and CTA service cuts and layoffs.

In the event that you go stark raving mad in the first hours of your first day and realize that you made a horrible decision, be sure that you can escape and get home within 45 minutes of leaving so that you can find a bar to go to in your neighborhood that has a good happy hour special, since in the near future you will be out of a job.

3. If you do not go insane in the first five hours of your first day, find out what, if any, chat applications your company allows you to install.

This is really important. So important that it should probably be number 1. The sheer boredom you will face your first week of work (at least three days) will drive you to all sorts of desperate measures. If you do not have the rights to access websites with downloads for chat, find a work around. As a last resort, contact the Infrastructure Manager from your previous company and ask him to hack into your computer and install Trillian or Digsby.

4. Sit at your desk all day long. Get a bucket to pee in as necessary.

As much as it pains me to recommend this, do not succumb to the temptation to leave the building, wander around the streets, go to Urban Outfitters, find a hot dog cart at 10:00 AM, or chain smoke cigarettes on or near the loading dock. It's really the wrong thing to do, even though it would help pass eight hours way better. Options besides sneaking out: find unbanned and awesome websites like The Oatmeal, some nonsense celebrity blog like Radar Online or Perez Hilton (BTW, can you believe this whole Sammie and Ronnie saga? Both their names end in i-e. I thought they were made for each other!)

5. When you are being finger-printed do not tell the man squishing your digits onto pieces of paper, "I know how to do this."

This will almost certainly throw up red flags to the SEC and FIMRA, but it will also make you look more like a criminal than you already feel. If, by chance, you are wearing a ski mask and for some reason holding up the finger printing store, then by all means tell the proprietor that you know what you are doing. But if you are a regular office drone, or returning office drone, please keep your understanding and knowledge of finger printing to yourself.

6. When finally boarding the bus after 5:00 PM, make sure you are first in line.

You have worked terribly hard this week so far. Especially if you factor in that you haven't left your home during business hours in five and a half months, wore actual real-person clothes, shoes made of leather, and carried not one, but two bags. Therefore, no matter how tired or poor these huddled masses may appear, you are worse off for deciding that going to an office , rather than sitting on your sofa with a computer on your lap, was the way to be.

Tata for now. I am too tired to continue on to number ten.
Shelly

PS -- no good pics either. I'll have to remember to take pictures of the finger print entry machine.