First Day of Work

This morning marked the T-minus 48 hour mark until Thanksgiving break.

I wish I could full express how relieved I am.  I cannot wait until I get some time off.  I need to just relax, read, mingle with my parents, and breathe.  That way, I’m fully recharged and ready to tackle the last two weeks of class and week of finals.

Today I am doing something different because it was my first day of work.  I started my job in a lab that processes Parkinson’s patient’s urine samples.  Not glamorous for sure but it pays the bills, right?  Basically I sit in a bright pink lab coat (of my girlie choosing) and match up samples with their labels and then relabel them with our lab’s information.  To honor my first day I thought I would share some fun/interesting/random-ish facts about my work history.

1. I started working when I was 14, almost 15.  I was an employee of a catering company that specialized in weddings.  I am convinced this fueled my fascination with wedding details.

2. My second job experience was very different than that of most teenagers.  I worked as an information database specialist at a law-firm. I was only 16 years old and I was earning over $10 an hour.  This sufficiently spoiled me, for life, towards minimum wage.

3. I used to go into work at 7:30 in the morning (which meant I left my house at 7am) so that I could get out by 3:30 in the afternoon.  I figured this would give me time to hang out and party with friends.  I never was invited to a party so I have no idea what I was actually thinking.  Oh well.

4. The only job I have ever held that I consider to “normal” would be my time at Geppetto’s Pizza.

I worked with four guys from my high school.  I was the only girl in the shop and I was banned from delivering to certain parts of the city because it wasn’t safe.  They were cutely overprotective.  Funnily, and grossly, enough, two years later I found out that my old boss was arrested for pedophilia.  Yuck.

5. In college I made most of my spare money by tutoring.  I did it privately, as part of the university’s learning center, and as an employee of a local, student-owned company.  I most enjoyed tutoring privately.  Basically, it was a guaranteed one-on-one session (the learning center could easily stick you with four students) at $20 a pop.  You can’t beat that with a stick, especially when everyone else is paying you $7 an hour.  Remember, I am not a fan of minimum wage…see #2.

6. When I graduated and moved onto my first Master’s degree, I became a graduate assistant.  Essentially I taught three labs a week.  I never understood all that teachers went through in a single class.  The disrespect shown by kids was staggering.  I will admit this year of employment gave me a whole new appreciation for professors, patience, and grading.

7. I am a MACHINE at data entry.  As I mentioned in #2 I worked in a law firm where one of my main responsibilities was to take all of their paper records to digital copy.  I blew through the entire chunk they allotted to me for the whole summer in three weeks.  They were floored when I asked for more.  Haha.

8. It may not be paid work but I did an internship with a prenatal genetic counselor where I got to flex my database muscles.  I, once again, blew through everything she needed me to do in about a third of the time she was expecting.  She kept expressing how sad she was when I left because the folders piling up was depressing in her office.

9. My new job in the lab isn’t super exciting and it isn’t anything will necessarily advance my standing in graduate school but I realized that for once, I don’t have to advance myself.  I am where I need to be and I don’t need to keep climbing.  It’s never a bad thing to do, yes, but it isn’t absolutely essential at this point. I can do this simply to gain some spare change for some nights out on the city and that is OKAY.  Someone has to do the grunt work right?

10. I take work home with me.  I always have.  I probably always will. Honestly, one of the reasons I chose my future career to be genetic counseling was because most days you can leave work at work and enjoy your time off.  After all, you can’t exactly take patient’s medical files home…and that’s just fine with me.

In other news today, I kicked my butt at the gym tonight when I got home from work.  I did a 45 minute maintenance run on the treadmill which was pleasantly easy.  I ended up doing 4.75 miles and then a nice cooldown.  I moved on to the reclined stationary bike and did 35 minutes there too.  I thought I was done after this but I went to the weight room instead and did two circuits:

• Bicep curls with a 10lb dumbbell each hand
• V arms raises with a 10lb dumbbell each hand
• Weighted standing oblique crunches with a 10lb dumbbell
• Tricep dips under own body weight
• Around the world, each side, with a 10lb dumbbell
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• Olympic press with a 10lb dumbbell each hand
• Bent over rows with a 10lb dumbbell each hand
• Bent over flies with an 8lb dumbbell each hand

With that lovely recap and my thoughts on work all out of my head, I am going to hit the sheets.  I need some sleep.  One more day until break!!

Questions: What have you learned from your work history?
Do you mind grunt-work jobs?
What are your thoughts on minimum wage?