Life is a journey

"I always thought I would meet someone at work; instead, I met someone, then went to work with them."
~AC

This past week has been wonderful. Making the transition from the classroom to a cubical was not as weird as I thought it might be. In fact, I'm already feeling pounds of stress being lifted from my shoulders and am gaining a new sense of what I want out of life.

Because it was my first week, I wasn't able to start working quite yet. I really enjoyed the training model because it is based on job shadowing and hands-on experience, rather than being secluded in a big room, being talked at all day about company policies, dos and don'ts of the job, and a variety of other boring lectures. There are eleven people on my team (including myself and our manager), and each of us have a "specialized area" to work in, but we end up rotating responsibilities and helping each other when the workload because greater. I don't want to put too much detail into what exactly we do out on the internet for the world to read, but to give you a general idea, there is a lot of computer-based work to be done. Now that I know more about this position, I'm surprised that no where in the application or interview did anyone ask about my computer skills. Luckily, I feel comfortable and confident in all I will be doing, but this definitely isn't a job for the computer illiterate.

Overall, the best features of this position are the laid-back atmosphere, the variety and monotony of daily tasks, and only taking work home in the form of conversations with my husband.

Even though we have some pretty pressing deadlines, everyone in my department is very relaxed, laid-back, and genuinely nice. The majority of people bring headphones to listen to music while they work, there's flexibility in our work schedules, and walking around and socializing is actually encouraged; as long as the work is done on time and with a high degree of accuracy, it's pretty much an "anything goes" sort of environment. For me, this is a very welcomed change from the constant responsibility for 25+ little bodies where just a single moment of not being completely alert could result in disaster.

As I mentioned, each member of my team has certain tasks that they focus on, but we are able to do a variety of different things in one day. Call me crazy, but I really enjoy the consistency these tasks offer, knowing exactly what I'm going to be doing what I sit down at my desk in the morning. Again, this is a huge difference from the constant change you experience in teaching. Maybe another teacher is absent so you have to split their class and have 5 extra kids in your room all day. Or the copy machine suddenly breaks down and you aren't able to make those important copies you desperately needed for today's lesson. While some people like having to stay on their toes and be prepared for everything, I much prefer having a routine with minimal changes. Perhaps this says something about my personality -- I wouldn't say I have a difficult time adapting, but I definitely hate feeling unprepared and flying by the seat of my pants. I'll roll with the punches, though not to the extent of sacrificing my sanity.

During my interview for this position, on of the other managers asked, "How do you think this will work out for you, considering your husband also works in this area?" Of course, I gave the professional response of, "Both of us are dedicated to our jobs and would never let our relationship become a distraction", but I really didn't know what it would be like until I was in that situation. Honestly, I love knowing he is close by, but it really isn't distracting at all. We are able to take our lunch break at the same time which is great, but other than that, we pretty much keep to ourselves and do what needs to be done. It is pretty neat for me to finally understand all of the terminology he's been using for the last 3 years, and I'm able to make connections with his stories he has been telling. It's like we're finally able to talk the same language when we discuss the age-old question, "How was your day at work?" There's something really satisfying about having this in common with each other, and I can feel it's already brought us closer together (if that's even possible). As it turns out, there are several husband-wife teams that work on our floor and in our departments, so it seems others have figured out the benefits of working together.

Overall, it's going to be a wonderful new chapter in my life, and I'm so glad to have my best friend by my side.