Newbie

And so ends the first week at my new job.

Turns out my trainer is from Houston and actually worked a couple of floors above me for a little while. I think I recall seeing him in the break room once. Maybe.

I'm being trained to do a particular kind of experiment and that is going well. Nothing totally new. My biggest challenge is just getting used to the new environment and remembering the little details of the protocols so that I can work efficiently.

Going from academic research to clinical for-profit is probably my biggest adjustment. I have to clock-in and out now and have to be mindful of my hours. So that means I have to get work finished before the end of the day; I can't just keep working until the work gets completed nor leave if there is not much to do. Also, I don't think anybody cares if I understand what I am doing. All I have to do is put the right samples in the tubes with the predetermined amounts of solution, stick them in some machines that are already preprogrammed and report the results. Now I am beginning to understand how someone could have lab experience and yet arrive in grad school without knowing how to make a properly diluted solution. Everything is already figured out. It's like making cake from a box; you could probably make a few mistakes and it would still turn out okay. But honestly, the best thing in this industry is that since there are such high volumes of samples coming in, we have machines!!! that do a lot of the work for us. Machines are fast!

My schedule is currently synch'd with my trainer's so I don't really like it. I have to work Sundays and have a bunch of ten hour days because my trainer is going out of town. But I don't foresee having any problems with this bit of training so I hope to be on my own schedule very soon.

I work a strange second shift that most departments in the building do not have. Which means when I take my lunch/dinner/supper?/food break at about 5pm, there really isn't anyone in the cafeteria. And my department is kinda small. Lonely and sad little lunch. or Dunch? Linner?

I need to find me some friends around here.

Did ya notice?

I updated the layout a wee bit and added my favorite websites over there on the right of the page.

Have fun wasting your time.

First Day

Today was my first day at my new job. I'm a bit stressed because of anxiety of starting something new but the people are so far very nice and it seems like a nice place to work. Today was pretty boring because it was only orientation. And I still have another day of orientation tomorrow. I should be in bed now since these orientation days are scheduled from 8:30am to 4:30pm. This also means an average of 1hr 15min in rush hour traffic each way. FUN.

I can't wait until I work my regular hours from noon to 8, but I'm not sure when that will happen because I have to be trained in the lab while those who will be training me are in the lab. So that actually might be 6am to 2pm!!!! Nighttime! But as long as I don't have to drive during rush hours, I don't mind too much.

So I suppose it's finally sinking in that I have a regular job. Being "hired" for that last job and not getting it really threw me for a loop because I keep having this feeling that this job is going to dissolve for no reason at any time. Having a job is something you may tend to take for granted after a while. But ya never know when you're gonna be out of one. It didn't really help that pretty much all we talked about in orientation today was the many ways you could get fired.

In other news...

Saturday was my last day at the bead shop. I couldn't leave without buying SOMETHING, so I bought some supplies for a Mother's Day gift. Here it is:

This photo needs cropping.

It is a bracelet made of "pearls" knotted (I taught myself to knot!) on gray silk thread with matching earrings. The beadcaps and toggle clasp are sterling silver. Black diamond Swarovski crystals with an aurora borealis coating top each beadcap.

On Sunday I stopped by a Craft Fair in Cheltenham to check out if there was anyone selling jewelry. There were a few. I wasn't impressed so I didn't buy anything. One of the jewelry makers recognized me from the bead store. The one really interesting thing at the fair was the person selling an abundance of fake display food. Donuts, cakes, pies, even crabs in a bucket and a platter of fish with fries. I don't know why the general public would want fake food, but I was really tempted to buy a fake donut for no reason. I did however buy a real apple dumpling. And since I got there late and the fair was about to end, I got a second one for free :).

Yay!

Today I heard back about the Job and I got it! :) I'm still a little nervous because I've been offered a job before and not gotten it in the end. So ,I'm still sort of holding my breath...

But, yes! A real JOB! With real money (not so much the first year, but that's fine! It's like a bajillion more than I'm making now. Seriously, a bajillion) and real benefits (not starting until July, but that's ok too! because now I've got insurance only to cover me if something horrendous happens).

I have orientation in a little over a week, so, sorry to my best friend, I cannot come visit. But I'll come visit as soon as possible. I have a lot of visiting to do. My "weekend" will be Sunday and Monday which is cool because I don't like Saturday crowds when I run my errands. Also, my regular schedule will be very nice because it's second shift and I will avoid rush hour both ways and don't have to get up early! It's basically the slacker schedule I kept in Houston, so it's perfect! And I may be able have it so the company will pay my tuition when I go back to Houston to complete the bane of my existence.

My boss at the bead shop will find out about my resignation tomorrow. A few weeks ago she wondered if I wanted to be a manager. Hmmm...no. Sorry. Flattered, but no. I do wish I knew someone who could replace me. But I don't really know anybody around here. LOL....*sigh*.

But I have learned some things at the bead shop. I learned not to shop at bead shops. LOL. Seriously, I had a lot of time to really think about retail markups. And I learned some neat techniques that I would have previously never considered. Like chain mail (maille?) Finally! an interesting (albeit expensive) technique perfect for boy jewelry.

Anyways, I am happy to be leaving retail and going back to meaningful science where I can do PCRs and load gels whilst standing in my weird little Sumo stability stance (feet spread, elbows on the bench. Don't laugh at me).

Lol

I'm not a big fan of cats. I don't own cat knickknacks. I have a cat, but I only like her juuuust enough to keep her.

But I love lolcats. If you don't know, lolcats are cute photos of cats (also other animals such as rabbits, dogs, and walruses) with captions. The caption is often in some form of Engrish and the spelling is phonetic. You can find them at http://icanhascheezburger.com and other places.
I'm not sure why I like these so much. It's a giant waste of time. I guess I like the clickability of it all and once in a while I find one that makes me laugh.

I just love sloths. Except for their algae fur.

I would NEVER do something like that...never.

Here's a freaky one:
If Kane, the short legged dog, and Butters, the cat loaf, mated!!!!!

*I do not condone crappity ass spelling unless you are an animal. If you are an animal, good job on learning to read and type and add text into your photos.