the office

I started a new job on Monday. It is my first real job. I am no longer a student working evenings and weekend to earn the money for my rent or an intern, getting work experience during holidays but I have a full time job with a monthly salary and that is it.

Excitement. And confusion.

I am in the office during the day and during the day only. No evenings. No weekends. I honestly am not even sure what this kind of a life should entail. What do people do with all this free time? Not to say I haven’t managed to keep myself occupied.

After my first day at work I was not quite sure what was expected of me. In fact I was totally lost. In my first real re-cap meeting yesterday morning it was obvious that my position had not changed much. It had, if possible gotten worse.

I went back to my desk completely discouraged. Surely there had been at least one word in a right place in that text. Well, there wasn’t. And I was not quite sure how to ensure that there would be. I restarted reading but could not understand most of the terms and concepts used in the text. And time kept running faster and faster and I had no new words on the screen but the word document was equally blank as it had been hours earlier.

Panic.

I asked for help, but could still not grasp the main points. I could feel tears gather into my eyes. I left my desk to avoid people from seeing I was crying.

I was devastated. I would never learn the job. Surely you should, even at the very beginning at least be going to the right direction and not be at level zero.

Five past five I took my bag and left the office. I could not take it any longer. I walk home regretting ever having moved to London. Four days. I had been living here for four days. Must be a new record.

Today I got thumbs up. Good work I was told. Still not as good as it will have to be but good nevertheless.

I didn’t cry today.

And will come back on Monday.