Work It

Almost five months after returning from England and four months after graduation I have a job. I don’t know what this means exactly. I guess I will have to squeeze all that I did during those unemployed days into a smaller number of hours. That shouldn’t be that hard because what I did during that time was mostly hang out with the readers of this blog. This was time well spent; the best way I can spend it. Now that friends have scattered across the country and state for school and jobs it is time to move away from the poverty line, manage my time a little more wisely, and get something done.

Today was my first day at work. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I was quite anxious about the first day of training. I really had no reason to be, but I kept on getting nervous. Sure enough, just like part of me thought, there was nothing to be nervous about. I won’t do anything at work for the first time without someone guiding me through it. However, the learning curve is a little more than I expected. I don’t know anything yet about the products I am selling, and there are a lot of cleaning procedures that didn’t seem hard or complicated until today, when I took the company tutorial on cleaning.

I did catch an employee reading some Donald Miller before their shift. Even though I haven’t moved Don up my reading list, I still know his writing and his readers well enough for this to grab my attention. I had a casual chat with the employee about Miller and his works. It was a small, immediate connection that could develop into friendship later on. I felt good about that.

This job is not what I expected, but things come and go for reasons and this opportunity has arisen with no others beside it. My commitment to it is, for me, a hard thing to handle sometimes. I have told a number of people that I am going to focus on the positive and look for areas in which this job will challenge me. I can then ask, “Why am I challenged there, and not here?” A little soul searching can come from the simplest things. This job will slow things down and give a new healthy perspective on the graduate life. Up until now I have been trying to jump onto trains that are going way too fast for me. Five years of studies, well, three really because you can’t count the first two years, convinced me that a degree will get you a foot in the door just about anywhere you want if you work hard enough. Not true. It gives you some power, but not the position and the time for jockeying for a better one is not now.