Temping for myself temping for myself temping whaaat.
Last week, Karina called me and asked me to temp my old job this week. I said no because it was That Tuesday and I was having a ~moment~. I later told her I would, especially given the rate. This takes my jobcount up to three this week. Three jobs, what recession? I am working 35 hours this week in three jobs, and I have uni and uni things due. This sounded like a good idea at the time (perhaps I was high?), today it does not feel like a good idea.
Oh well, live and learn.
ANYWAY, the point of this post was to explain just how bizarre it was to sit at my own desk. Paul told me to log in as me and I did and holy shit, the background photo I had up when I was working there was still there, the photos of me and Gabe, me and Beckett, the other photos I had saved to my desktop were all there where I left them in June. MINDFUCK.
I think to myself "Yeah, well I've changed a lot since June, I've done a lot, achieved a lot, learned a lot." But the freaking phone rings with that ringtone I picked when the VOIP got installed and then forgot how to change it and it's like I never left. Then Mal comes around the corner, laughs and says "Like you never left!"
A good ninety percent of my job is exactly how I left it, in fact I felt more out of joint sitting back at my desk the day I got back from England than I did sitting down today. Less things were in the wrong place, less things left out. Of course, after an hour, I realise that my beautiful Debtor and WIP procedures are fucked up. *sigh* The hours and hours and hours I spent making them so amazingly perfect. Anyone could walk in off the street, pick up the debtor file and know exactly how that invoice was made up, how overdue it was, what action had been taken, what was left to do, how it was eventually paid. Ugh, that file was a thing of obsessive compulsive beauty. But I know one of my ~life lessons~ is to let go and so let go I must.
As I got to work and parked in ~my parking space~ right outside my window where I could watch for parking inspectors, a funeral left from Chippers and oh man, it was so reassuring! All those months watching the funerals go, every single time dropping what I was doing to watch them. You can't help but think about stuff like funerals when they pump 'em out at anywhere between zero and five a day (per funeral home) right outside your window. You think about your funeral, who would go, what it would be like, what you'd be buried in, what you'd have played. I used to think it would be hilarious to be buried in my Black Parade jacket or Dead! hoodie.
You think about who it is you're watching, who they were in the dead person's life. Are you looking at the guy that worked next to him? The woman who used to drive her kids to school three mornings a week when they were little? Their kids? Their students? Their neighbours? When will they go back to their real lives? This afternoon or will they struggle for the next few months to even get out of bed?
What happens over there in the back section, where they load the bodies in the hearses? Is it like Six Feet Under? Do the morticians get freaked out being there alone? Is it gorey? What about health/contamination concerns? Surely embalming has a bunch of bodily fluids involved and contamination with blood-born diseases isn't unusual? What really bothers the morticians? Kids, people that look like someone they love, badly "damaged" people, people they see themselves in, people they wish or fear they would be/are?
Far out, funerals provide(d) me with so much to think about it makes my head spin. For at least six months at that job, I was actually sure I would wind up as a mortician if I got the balls to research or start to train for it.
Within the first hour, I was convinced I'd never left. The only difference was that I didn't have my sweet music setup. As if my brain knew that was the only thing that was missing, every time I sat down I'd glance over at the space next to the corner where the little speakers used to be, and think "New album time!".
So going back in time a year, good? bad? indifferent?
Last night, I was completely stressed out about it. I was convinced it would be like starting a new job at a time when stress and emo-ness were at a high. But in this weird, creepy familial way, nobody made a fuss of me and I was just re-absorbed into that group of people. Fist-out-of-a-bucket but in reverse. Aside from a few moments of wigging out (ie. "WHAT. HOW DO YOU FUCKING TAG THE ELD FORMS? I KNOW THEY NEED TAGGING. I KNOW I DON'T NEED TO DO IT ALL BY HAND. WHAT." "TIMESHEETS? REAL TIMESHEETS? OH GOD." and "What the fuck do I answer the phone with? :/") it was so familiar and so easy to just...get into. It makes me wonder why I was so frustrated with it when I left, I remember being really stressed out at so many people and my job, and feeling like my job wasn't secure because of some rather badly handled conversations with my management and being convinced that holidays = YOU'RE SO FIRED.
At the end of the day (heh. 3pm for me, hells yes), it reminded me of all the good parts of that job. I was a real grown up in a real grown up job that paid decent money. My life was this job and when I did it well, I was pleased with myself. People didn't care if I'd had a shitty week or who I was (not) dating, if there's a new scratch on my brand new car, they just accepted me with that rather reserved office "friends" air to them. It was shallow but it was reassuring? Because I am so tired of talking about myself and my shitty life and problems.
The total highlight of my day though, was when Tracey's husband called for her at 9:30:
ME: Good morning Company Name Here, this is Hannah.
JEREMY: ...HANNAH?
ME: Yep!
JEREMY: Oh my goodness, a blast from the past! What are you DOING answering the phone?!
and he talked to me for like ten minutes about what I'm doing now and how I'd been and how he'd missed me and stuff, I was really touched because he was the only person who made a real fuss of me like I was the prodigal son. He made my day just by freaking out over me doing my job. Small things make a day, small things.
HERE ENDS YET ANOTHER INCREDIBLY LONG POST ABOUT THE INNERMOST WORKINGS OF MY BRAIN.
I don't know why I'm so writey lately :/ I'm sorry, I'm sure it'll go away again soon.
Oh well, live and learn.
ANYWAY, the point of this post was to explain just how bizarre it was to sit at my own desk. Paul told me to log in as me and I did and holy shit, the background photo I had up when I was working there was still there, the photos of me and Gabe, me and Beckett, the other photos I had saved to my desktop were all there where I left them in June. MINDFUCK.
I think to myself "Yeah, well I've changed a lot since June, I've done a lot, achieved a lot, learned a lot." But the freaking phone rings with that ringtone I picked when the VOIP got installed and then forgot how to change it and it's like I never left. Then Mal comes around the corner, laughs and says "Like you never left!"
A good ninety percent of my job is exactly how I left it, in fact I felt more out of joint sitting back at my desk the day I got back from England than I did sitting down today. Less things were in the wrong place, less things left out. Of course, after an hour, I realise that my beautiful Debtor and WIP procedures are fucked up. *sigh* The hours and hours and hours I spent making them so amazingly perfect. Anyone could walk in off the street, pick up the debtor file and know exactly how that invoice was made up, how overdue it was, what action had been taken, what was left to do, how it was eventually paid. Ugh, that file was a thing of obsessive compulsive beauty. But I know one of my ~life lessons~ is to let go and so let go I must.
As I got to work and parked in ~my parking space~ right outside my window where I could watch for parking inspectors, a funeral left from Chippers and oh man, it was so reassuring! All those months watching the funerals go, every single time dropping what I was doing to watch them. You can't help but think about stuff like funerals when they pump 'em out at anywhere between zero and five a day (per funeral home) right outside your window. You think about your funeral, who would go, what it would be like, what you'd be buried in, what you'd have played. I used to think it would be hilarious to be buried in my Black Parade jacket or Dead! hoodie.
You think about who it is you're watching, who they were in the dead person's life. Are you looking at the guy that worked next to him? The woman who used to drive her kids to school three mornings a week when they were little? Their kids? Their students? Their neighbours? When will they go back to their real lives? This afternoon or will they struggle for the next few months to even get out of bed?
What happens over there in the back section, where they load the bodies in the hearses? Is it like Six Feet Under? Do the morticians get freaked out being there alone? Is it gorey? What about health/contamination concerns? Surely embalming has a bunch of bodily fluids involved and contamination with blood-born diseases isn't unusual? What really bothers the morticians? Kids, people that look like someone they love, badly "damaged" people, people they see themselves in, people they wish or fear they would be/are?
Far out, funerals provide(d) me with so much to think about it makes my head spin. For at least six months at that job, I was actually sure I would wind up as a mortician if I got the balls to research or start to train for it.
Within the first hour, I was convinced I'd never left. The only difference was that I didn't have my sweet music setup. As if my brain knew that was the only thing that was missing, every time I sat down I'd glance over at the space next to the corner where the little speakers used to be, and think "New album time!".
So going back in time a year, good? bad? indifferent?
Last night, I was completely stressed out about it. I was convinced it would be like starting a new job at a time when stress and emo-ness were at a high. But in this weird, creepy familial way, nobody made a fuss of me and I was just re-absorbed into that group of people. Fist-out-of-a-bucket but in reverse. Aside from a few moments of wigging out (ie. "WHAT. HOW DO YOU FUCKING TAG THE ELD FORMS? I KNOW THEY NEED TAGGING. I KNOW I DON'T NEED TO DO IT ALL BY HAND. WHAT." "TIMESHEETS? REAL TIMESHEETS? OH GOD." and "What the fuck do I answer the phone with? :/") it was so familiar and so easy to just...get into. It makes me wonder why I was so frustrated with it when I left, I remember being really stressed out at so many people and my job, and feeling like my job wasn't secure because of some rather badly handled conversations with my management and being convinced that holidays = YOU'RE SO FIRED.
At the end of the day (heh. 3pm for me, hells yes), it reminded me of all the good parts of that job. I was a real grown up in a real grown up job that paid decent money. My life was this job and when I did it well, I was pleased with myself. People didn't care if I'd had a shitty week or who I was (not) dating, if there's a new scratch on my brand new car, they just accepted me with that rather reserved office "friends" air to them. It was shallow but it was reassuring? Because I am so tired of talking about myself and my shitty life and problems.
The total highlight of my day though, was when Tracey's husband called for her at 9:30:
ME: Good morning Company Name Here, this is Hannah.
JEREMY: ...HANNAH?
ME: Yep!
JEREMY: Oh my goodness, a blast from the past! What are you DOING answering the phone?!
and he talked to me for like ten minutes about what I'm doing now and how I'd been and how he'd missed me and stuff, I was really touched because he was the only person who made a real fuss of me like I was the prodigal son. He made my day just by freaking out over me doing my job. Small things make a day, small things.
HERE ENDS YET ANOTHER INCREDIBLY LONG POST ABOUT THE INNERMOST WORKINGS OF MY BRAIN.
I don't know why I'm so writey lately :/ I'm sorry, I'm sure it'll go away again soon.