seasonal

this week, i started a seasonal job as a data transcriber for, um, a major federal agency. i haven't had time to blog about it until now, although i have been jotting things down along the way. so here you go.

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the seasonal job is ... weird, to say the least. nothing of real note happened the first two days. just training. learning stupid rules and such. grudgingly talking to other smokers in the designated smoking area. i say grudgingly because, well, i really didn't want to talk to anyone. and so far, no one in my training "team" has caught my fancy. in other words, i'm not there to make friends; i'm there to do monotonous work and get paid for it. i am, apparently, a robot.

but two smokers decided they would talk to me, whether i wanted to talk to them or not. both are older women, one white, one black, both married with children with day jobs. i never asked why, if they had a day job, were they doing this seasonal job, because i really didn't want to know.

on day three (wednesday to you people not operating on a training schedule), a new trainer joined our "team". (i use quotation marks because really, we're separated into two training groups, but for some odd reason, they feel the need to call us "teams", even though we're not really doing anything team-like; we're just sitting at our computers typing away. if that's team work, then i've obviously been involved with much different teams until now.) this new trainer looked oddly familiar to me. it wasn't until our lunch break that i realized who she reminded me of: she looked uncannily like my brother's "ex-wife". (and i use quotes here because the marriage was proved invalid once it came to light that she was still married to a gang member in prison serving time for manslaughter. yeah.) it freaked me out for a bit, because i kept wondering if it really was her. i was convinced it wasn't because, if it was, then surely she would've come up to me and say something like "didn't i ruin your brother's life once?" or maybe that's a trick of the mind. because if it really was her, then maybe she was avoiding me so as i wouldn't remember her. but at the end of the day, i just decided to stop mando-ing out (yes, i've decided to use my name as a verb to mean how i always overthink things to the point that they make no sense anymore but still stress me out immensely) and decide that, if this trainer really was my not-ex-sister-in-law, that i shouldn't really care. sure, she ruined my brother's life and probably pushed him into this weird elektra complex-ish path where he only dates women who are old enough to be our mother and who have children from previous relationships/marriages, but won't marry them or try to procreate with them, making him join me in perpetual bachelorhood and ensuring our parents won't get any biological grandchildren from either of their sons. but she's working at a federal agency. good for her, if it is indeed her.

on thursday, i realized that this guy that sits in the row across from me looks like my cousin andrew. so now i kinda hate this guy. not that i hate my cousin andrew; i haven't spoken to him in years. more, i hate the idea of my cousin andrew because of how my step-grandmother would make such a to-do about him and how he had gotten into harvard and was working at blockbuster because he thought he should make his own money and not leech off his parents (unlike one of our uncles, who still leeches off our step-grandmother, increasingly so after our grandfather died back in '04). so step-granny made andrew out to be a saint; a scholar and a gentleman! whereas i was just chopped fucking liver with meaningless accomplishments.

ahem. moving on.

the work itself isn't that hard. it's a lot of memorization of rules that make no logical sense. having been a copy editor and proofreader for as long as i have, you know, it's small fries to me. except, you know, grammar rules make some sense. but just because it's easy for me doesn't mean it's easy for everyone else. and even then, it wasn't all that easy for me to begin with, because i was letting it stress me out. during one of our breaks on thursday, i was talking with the smoking ladies, and we all agreed that, while the work wasn't that stressful, we were letting it stress us out. we were letting this stupid, meaningless crap freak us out to the point where it was affecting our training. and that was kind of a breakthrough for me. because i was totally mando-ing out, but so were these ladies, and probably most of the other people on our "team". but this helped me, and when we went back in, i felt relieved. and i started getting all the stupid rules better. and i stopped freaking out.

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from overhearing a lot of conversations, i've learned that most of these people are there as a secondary job. some are like my smoking ladies, some are college students that wanted to pick up some extra cash. it makes me wonder why they are all there. i want to interview them and ask them intrusive questions about their situations and what led them to this particular seasonal job. then i remember i don't really give a fuck and should just go back to reading my david rakoff or sarah vowell books and not pretend like i'm there to write my own book.

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friday, we took two tests which would determine if we would go on to the next week of training or get the boot. after the second test, our head trainer instructed those whose names were called out to report to the cafeteria and not return to the training area until a certain time. we all collectively surmised we would be coming back next week to finish training, while those who had to stay behind were getting canned.

on the way to the cafeteria and in the cafeteria, i overheard people making comparisons to reality tv/competition shows. there were comparisons to survivor ("i guess they got voted off the island"), american idol ("[a certain trainer] is totally the simon"), and the apprentice (um, i think we all know that quote). the only thing i could think of when i was overhearing this stuff was that, if i were better versed in reality tv and not mock reality tv, then i could probably think something other than the valerie cherish-ish "i didn't have to hear that."

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update, 2/11: i forgot to mention, my smoking ladies got canned. now i can smoke in peace without any idle chitchat. yay!