I'm a Working Girl!

I'm sorry for my absentness, folks, but I'm an official 8 to 5 gal, now. It's been awhile since I've had a set work schedule - 8 years to be exact. It's actually not as hard an adjustment as I thought it would be. I need to come up with some sort of blogging schedule lest I'm forgotten for lack of posting (and commenting), but I'll just have to work on that.

Right now I'm just extremely grateful to have a regular paycheck and I only had to sweat through one interview. I feel really, really fortunate in that regard. I was so freaking nervous in my interview. I'm just not the confident kind. I know I'm a hard worker, but I don't know if I'm perceived as one.

Despite my stumbling over a couple questions, they seemed to like me. I was their first interview and they were only interviewing four other people. I found out later that after they met with me, they cancelled all but one of the other interviews. I interviewed on a Thursday and on Monday they called me in to offer me the job. I started the next day.

It's a small family owned computer software and hardware company. I do administrative assistant stuff, like phones, quickbooks, correspondence, and whatever other support their programmers might need. I'll also get to write some website content which is very cool.

It's an all guy office, except for me and one other girl, but she works off site. They're all very techy, of course, because that's their job - and I felt a little inept at their phone system at first, but I'm starting to settle in now. I like what I do, I get along with everyone fine, and I hope I make them happy they hired me.

I've already had a "maybe I just shouldn't speak" moment. As part of the hiring process, the project manager had sent out a questionnaire and proofreading challenge to all of the candidates. After he hired me, he showed me how I scored compared to the rest of the candidates. He told me I had scored the highest, but as I was looking at his little chart of scorings and rankings, trying to see for myself how smart I was, I couldn't read it for the life of me. I couldn't tell if I was the first vertical row or the first horizontal column or what all the numbers meant, because they weren't labeled.

At times like these, it's best to just nod and smile. It's not a good idea when someone is trying to show you how smart you are, to ask a question, because the odds are it's going to be a really dumb question and give them reason to reconsider their opinion. I asked what one of the scores was and as it turns out, I was reading the darn thing all wrong and he gave me an odd look as he explained I was looking at the wrong row. Now I have to redeem myself and do something smart. I hate when that happens!

The other thing that is a bit challenging is figuring out what these guys think is funny. I make coments in my emails that are meant to be humorous and I get nothing. Crickets. You know what I mean? Like it's so quiet you just hear crickets chirping? It's a bit off-putting, but then again, maybe I'm off-putting to them.

Despite a few jitters, I'm really glad I'm there. I think I'm a good fit for this little company and I hope I can make a contribution to their success. Thanks for everyone's kind comments and support. I'll be around visiting your blogs soon, I promise!