Greetings from sunny Baghdad
Okay. I’m here.
Been here awhile, but we started work almost the moment I arrived, and there hasn’t been time for much of anything else since. My official duty day is eleven hours long, plus an hour of mandatory exercise first thing every morning, plus whatever meetings or extra tasks get dropped on us. (For instance, I had night duty last week: twelve hours doing guard at HQ, and then I went straight into my normal eleven-hour shift. Fortunately, I had been permitted to sleep on the office couch, as long as the phones were turned up loud enough to wake me if any calls came in.)
I’ve been in Iraq for just under two weeks now, and all that time has been taken up in a mad scramble to learn the job of the team we’re replacing, because they’re gone very, very soon. This is different from anything I did before, but I can tell already that I’m going to be good at it. A nice change of role for me; I always held up my end, but I was surrounded by superstars, and was well aware that I suffered by comparison. My current position is an almost perfect match for my interests and capabilities, and I have every intention of excelling.
I just hope I don’t do so well that the team replacing me will never be able to match my example …
Hey, it could happen.
Among other things, available Internet time is very, very limited for me. I’m two weeks behind in checking my LJ friends list, so I’m posting this quick and moving on. More and better, perhaps, once I’ve had time to catch my breath.