Back in the Saddle

I am now offi­cial­ly a full-time employ­ee again! In the last episode, I was strug­gling to fig­ure out if I want­ed to go with Enti­ty A or B. Enti­ty B had me back for an all-day inter­view, but I did­n’t hear back from them fast enough to turn down the job at Enti­ty A. It’s pos­si­ble I could still hear some­thing from B once the hol­i­days are past.

It’s tak­en a bit to adjust and will prob­a­bly take longer to ful­ly accli­mate to the work­ing world in gen­er­al, and this par­tic­u­lar posi­tion specif­i­cal­ly. I’m now tied to the 9–5 life again and I don’t hate it.

I’ve doc­u­ment­ed my obser­va­tions because, duh. Blog­ger. Of course, I’m going to do so — I’ve got to share with my awe­some­ly sup­port­ive readers 🙂

I find I’m slight­ly uncom­fort­able at work. It’s to be expect­ed as it takes time to set­tle in at a new job, but I’ve also just changed pret­ty much every­thing about my life. I’ve always worked at a big com­pa­ny in a typ­i­cal office envi­ron­ment. This new job is not only at a large gov­ern­ment facil­i­ty, but it’s also a con­trac­tor posi­tion as part of a con­tract. There’s a whole set of new things to be wor­ried about I’m just now real­iz­ing are kind of a big deal. Name­ly, the con­tract is up for renew­al next year, so the pos­si­bil­i­ty exists that my com­pa­ny could lose the con­tract and I’d be out of a job. Or at least have a lot of things change.

I will say, though, that I’m quite pleased with myself for only get­ting slight­ly lost on my way to my office loca­tion with­in the build­ing. And I still made it to my seat by 830! #win­ning

There are oth­er dif­fer­ences as well. Giv­en that I work for the gov­ern­ment in the grand scheme of things, secu­ri­ty is a much high­er pri­or­i­ty and a much big­ger deal than I’ve expe­ri­enced so far. I’m used to it from my days in the Air Nation­al Guard (I’ve even tak­en some of the exact same train­ing as I did when I was enlist­ed and the sys­tem remem­bered me. Creepy.) The office I work in does­n’t allow cell phones at our desks, so I’m being starved of phone time. I might be addict­ed to my phone because I for sure feel like I’m going through with­drawals with­out it being right next to me all day.

I’m still a lit­tle on the fence as to whether or not I like this job. I am real­ly grate­ful to be employed again, but I don’t think this is the best fit for me long run. It’s a good first step back into the work­ing world. Noth­ing says I have to stay here forever.

I’m used to being a part of the peo­ple I sup­port­’s day to day life. Instead, I’m squir­reled away in the base­ment far away from the users with the rest of the help desk and I got­ta say I don’t like the sep­a­ra­tion. I like being there, get­ting to know them, and help­ing them with every­day stuff in addi­tion to the emer­gency tech stuff.

Giv­en that I also live in a base­ment, I might have to buy an imi­ta­tion sun­light bulb and stock up on Vit­a­min D pills. It would be incred­i­bly easy to not see any sun­light at all dur­ing the day. I do get to see some pret­ty beau­ti­ful sun­ris­es but with it being the offi­cial begin­ning of win­ter, the sun sets ear­ly. I miss hav­ing a win­dow out­side. It could be the apoc­a­lypse out­side and I doubt I would know anything.

Tech­nol­o­gy-wise, things are a lit­tle behind where I was in the cor­po­rate world and noth­ing is super seam­less like we had it. Things just take a lit­tle bit more hands-on work than they used to. It’s noth­ing I can’t han­dle but it is some­thing to remem­ber and adjust once I start answer­ing calls.

Over­all, I like being in DC despite being neu­tral on the job itself. The FIRE com­mu­ni­ty here is great and has wel­comed me with open arms. I had Christ­mas din­ner with Own­ing the Stars and her fam­i­ly which was tasty and helped me for­get I was­n’t home cel­e­brat­ing with my birth fam­i­ly. They made deli­cious gluten-free food! We also had fun play­ing Rum­mikub which I’ve some­how made it 28 with­out ever play­ing. Round two will be over New Years’ Eve!

I like that pret­ty much any­thing I want to do is avail­able in the area. Ski­ing? Near­by. Indoor sky­div­ing? Got it. Corn­hole bar league? Starts end of Jan­u­ary. Com­e­dy clubs that offer stand-up com­e­dy lessons? On the list of things to tack­le in 2019.  Big cities with lots of his­tor­i­cal places to vis­it with­in a train ride? Yep! Cute farmer’s mar­kets with the most amaz­ing gluten-free veg­an caramel apple crum­ble tarts? YES! (Seri­ous­ly I think I had a reli­gious expe­ri­ence eat­ing the first one. I’m so glad I got 2!)

I love that the options are only lim­it­ed to my imag­i­na­tion! I’m very much look­ing for­ward to warmer weath­er so when the rest of my stuff gets here I can do things out­side like soft­ball and disc golf. Rid­ing my bike along the scenic Potomac Riv­er dur­ing the spring with all the cher­ry blos­soms seems idyllic.

All-in-all, I have a feel­ing things are start­ing to go my way and I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing all the things I accom­plish in the future!

Thanks for read­ing! If you live in the NoVA/DC area, send me an email and let’s see if we can meetup!