04.22.2002 - Group Writing Process

After a poor attempt at sleeping through the night, I got out of bed long before my alarm went off. Since I had so much extra time, I figured I'd check the ol' e-mail before I hopped in the shower. When I sat down in front of the computer, Kaitlin IMs me, and I'm instantly excited because her limited Internet access and the time difference between California and France prevents us from keeping in touch as much as we used to. We discussed our problems with the opposite sex and how we feel like ripping our hair out everytime someone asks us what we're doing in the future and I completely disregarded the clock. When I looked down and noticed I now had about a half hour to shower, get dressed and drive the twenty minutes to work. I can't remember if it's a good or bad sign when I start out my work week frantically scurrying around. At least I remembered to wear pants when I left the house this time, so things can't be entirely bad.

The boss is back and I once more don the personal bitch uniform. Truthfully, she treats me reasonably well. I just don't have even a modicum of interest in doing this job or working in this environment. Complimenting me on my post card and giving me treats from her vacation first thing in the morning definitely helps me get through the day, though, so the recurrent thought of threatening anyone who walks by my desk with my letter opener went more than it came today.

Still, I finished all of my work in the first half hour. Spending the rest of the day reading news over the AP wire and trying desperately to come up with a halfway decent column topic didn't exactly make my day fly by, and by the time quitting time rolled around, I was ready to get the hell out.

Yes, get the hell out and head to Job #2. Just what I needed.

I walked through the doors and met the new new person filling the position at which I proved to be so inept. The company chose and hired her solely because management wanted someone ethnic. This woman, though nice enough, will run into the same problems I did. The only difference is that she's bilingual. I wish her luck, but I wish I could tell her to run like hell and go work for a company that's not going to place an inordinate amount of pressure on her and promise things they'll never deliver, but I know better. I'm glad for the opportunity to have worked there, but I'd never work there as a salaried, career employee.

For the first hour or so, I worked my ass off transferring information from one database to another. I finished my work and called the regional manager to find out what comes next. I waited around for an hour, got lunch, came back and waited some more before she finally returned my message. By that point I was in serious Not Working mode, and starting the next facet of the task didn't seem to be in the cards. I plodded along for a short while, but soon gave up and headed home.

Still without a column topic, I sat in the living room watching Pete and Pete while waiting for information. Katie called and offered to make me waffles, so I figured I'd rather not write at her place and get waffles than not write at mine.

Shortly after I got there, one of her good friends and her friend's fiancee showed up and, me being perpetually nervous these days, did not do much to make a good first impression unless making a good impression means standing around awkwardly and making poor conversation. They generously tried to help me find a topic, and while this rarely works out, one of their suggestions ended up being my final choice, though I'm not sure why.

Katie decided to tag along to give me company while I wrote, and while she could have been a distraction, I probably finished my column much quicker because she was there. I didn't feel as inclined to go watch half of a bad movie on cable or scrub the floor of my bathroom in order to procrastinate as I normally would have. I guess I work better under supervision.

Somehow, I ended up finishing the whole ball o' crap in just under three hours. Imagine how quickly it would have gone if I actually had something interesting to say. I should work on learning how to do that.

-- Jeffy