The Archive

Men at Work

Blimey, I'd forgotten how much hard work hard work was.

First day of the job done. Jesus, Mary and Joseph it was intense. Not sure how I'm going to hold up under the impossible deadlines and workloads but, rest assured, when I have my total breakdown, I'll document it all here.

So, for all you've forgotten, here's what it's like on your...

First day of work
5am Wake up. Look at clock radio. Realise you have been asleep for 28 minutes, during which you dreamed anxious dreams about forgetting to show up to an important exam.

5.30am Get back to sleep.

5.36am Wake up again, sweating. Stare at ceiling.

7am Alarm goes off. You're actually relieved, because lying in bed clenching your jaw and going over and over what might happen in your mind is not much fun. You allow 45 minutes for getting ready, leaving you plenty of time for your commute to the new work.

7.15 Finish getting ready. Fail to eat breakfast. Drink some orange juice. Feel sick.

7.16 Leave for work anyway, even though you are almost certain to be about an hour early as a result. After all, you never know if the traffic is going to be unusually bad, or you may be detained by fundamentalist terrorists on the way. Better safe than sorry.

8am Arrive outside the office. You're an hour early. Nobody else is there yet, which is fine because now you're embarrassed about being so early. Find a Starbucks, quick.

9am Arrive outside the office again, trembling with a combination of nerves and three cafe mochachinos. Feel sick some more.

9.30 Get introduced to 'everyone'. They are all very friendly and charming. You try to strike a balance between friendly eye contact and 'new starter' reserve and end up looking like a wide-eyed loner about whom everyone will one day be telling reporters 'Well he just kept himself to himself really. We were terribly surprised when the Police showed up.'

10am You need to go the toilet, thanks to the cafe mochachinos. But you've already forgotten everyone's name so you're embarrassed to ask the nice lady opposite where they are.

11am The little dance you're doing around the office is now officially more embarrassing than asking where the bogs are. You ask that woman, apologising for forgetting her name. She doesn't care and directs you to the loos.

12noon Team meeting. You sit there dumbly whilst acronyms swarm around you and everyone seems much, much more capable than you are. Feel sick some more.

1pm Lunch. You get directions to a sandwich shop just around the corner, but take a long, long walk around the area before you find it, because you just need a bit of space and time and air alone. Eventually you get to the shop and order a sandwich. Whichever type you order, you immediately regret it and wish you'd ordered something else. I don't know why, you just do.

2pm Start actually trying to do some productive work. This proves impossible because you just don't know anything yet.

3pm The boss asks how you're getting on and you, despite having spent the last forty minutes trying to remember how to do a Vlookup in Excel (or whatever you do, that's what I did today anyway) and failing, reply "Oh, not bad, you know." He knows. Or at least claims to.

3.05pm The desperate staring at the clock transforms into a realistic countdown. Going home time is just two hours away. You can do it.

3.30pm A meeting! Thank fuck for that. Meetings are easy and require no output. Talking is easy or, better still, listening even easier (at work that is. Relationships are a different matter) The end is in sight. Begin to feel less sick.

4.30pm What were you worried about? That wasn't so bad. And you'll be off home in half an hour or so.

5pm No you won't. The boss has just asked you to do something as you were pulling your coat off the back of your chair. You just manage to make it look as if you weren't, in fact, off home but were actually just dusting some fluff off your jacket before returning it to the back of the chair and getting down to some real graft.

5.01pm Boss leaves having issued instructions. You stare at your screen and want to cry. Make a reluctant start on work.

6pm Some tiny progress made, but depression really kicking in. You realise you have to go home now or there's a good chance you'll just end it all now. Loads left still to do on that task.

But still, there's always tomorrow eh?

Well that was my day anyway, except it wasn't 6, it was much later. Really, first days just suck don't they?

posted by Peter The Great @ 9:49 PM