It's week 3 at my new place of work and I have been flooded.  It's not so much the volume of stuff so much as the lack of training so I haven't been able to be as efficient as I can be.  Today I finally got people to teach me how to use the system so I can stop waiting for collegues to look things up and then tell me what I need to know.  That was work at snail pace.  Hopefully now I can cross-reference everything quickly and knock off each thing off the checklist ASAP.

Today I worked till 7.  At my last job, if I was sitting till 7 I would have been on a total rampage.  My blood would be boiling and leave the night with vengence on my mind.  At this new place, however, I actually do not mind the extra hours.  It's only after 5 when the phones stop ringing, the emails stop loading and I can sit myself down to look at each issue that I have to deal with properly.  Most of all it's the people.  I don't think I have met one person there who I am not partial to yet.  They're all a dream to work with, amicable and open to simply getting along and getting the work done.  It's understood that you don't have to be the ultimate best of friends or whatever, but it can be expected that everyone is cheerful and make conversation.  I think part of it is that people are overll happy in their job and they see to it that where they are five plus days a week is a pleasant place to be.  Overall, despite the crush of work, I'm happy.

Tomorrow is December.  Already.  Time really does zoom right by.  It didn't seem so long ago when I was still walking around in shorts and flipflops.  December means I get to head over to HK in exactly T minus 18 days!  And this has sort of been the crux of why I am quite stressed at work.  I will be taking a two week holiday only one month into starting, which means I will have to pull my weight and prove myself well before I go on hiatus.

December also means a lot of shopping to get done quickly.  I'm going to have to clock some good OT hours and get started on spending it all.

It's been a good while since I wrote an entry so I figured I should at least post something.  Not much has drastically changed since my past birthday post.  Essentially, I'm still being eager beaver with my two marketing courses, watching my share of TLC's Cake Boss and Say Yes to the Dress, and hunting down lunch and dinner buddies to keep me company.  Other than making a few rush trips out to see a distributor and working out some major kinks with a project, I have been sick since Saturday so no real going out for me since I didn't feel it was necessary to help spread the flu around. 

Good thing the flu finially decided to let up on me a bit yesterday as I got a call to go in for a second job interview for this morning.  I managed to get through it, pretending that my voice really is so deep and that it's normal to be breathing heavily through my mouth.  I met the company's CEO and he was a nice enough man.  It's always a pleasure to meet people of authority and are successful yet are well-adjusted and kind.  The only horror was that prior to heading out of the house, I saw that I made a glitch on my resume, but I figured that they would have noticed it by now and would not have called me back if it really had irked them. 

Two minutes ago I got a call from one of the VP's who had interviewed me at the first meeting to tell me that they have an offer for me.  I'm quite thrilled and will take the weekend to really think over it.  The thing about the company is that the headquarters are located in the industrial area of Richmond, near No. 8 Rd., where that massive cement plant is location off of Westinster Highway.  In fact, this place is closer to New West than where I live.  I'm not quite sure why I have a knack for applying to places that like inaccessiblity, but I suppose that is the nature of things when work is related to manufacturing and imports and the companies need the warehousing space.

Christmas will be coming up soon and I have already purchased a ticket to Hong Kong and I hope this workplace will be ok with me taking off for 2 weeks.  It's been almost a year since I've seen my family so I really do look forward to it.  My brother and I will most likely be doing a lot of last min shopping at our local mall and getting some major sticker shock.  It's one part amusement and one part frustration when you see that the best you can afford in that mall is a pair of socks or something lame like that.  When Marks and Spencer starts looking like it has smashing deals, that's a mall you shouldn't be walking around in. 

Mostly though, I look forward to eating some homecooked food and for my whole family to be at the dinner table.  We tended to disagree a lot and we sometimes rub each other in the wrong way.  Yes, even with an ocean between us.  But at the end of the day, I would say that we do get along and are each other's best advocate.  I look forward to catching up, making up silly senarios, and keeping each other company.

It's only been three days since I started on my new job and I'm already quite drained.  The work in itself isn't brain surgery but I think the anxiety of being the new person and trying to meet expectations is taking quite a toll on me.  On top of it all, I just started two new marketing courses which I have to attend to in the night.

My Clown has been quite patient with me since I'm not exactly in the best of moods when I get home and I've also had to steal the car to get to work in the mornings.  The new place, unfortunately, is not along any major transit routes.  The best Google Maps recommends is a stop at the Main Street station then a loooooooooong walk through an industrial area and train tracks.  While that may not seem so bad in this sunny early Sept. weather, I am not up for any trekking around when dark sets in by 4:30pm and there is wind and rain whipping everywhere.  So, I will simply have to see if this job is worth my time or not.  At this point, logistics is a big problem.

A part of me knows that I should not have anything to complain about since it is not easy finding a job, let alone a job where I can actually learn a thing or two.  Yet, since this is not my first job anymore, I have become more picky about saying yes to just any kind of work.  Perhaps I have been spoiled for a good month of sleeping in, lunch dates and sunny weather, but I also believe that there must be more than simply having work for the sake of having work.  If I have to wake up early five day a week and devote a good amount of time to it, whatever the job is, it should make me tick and make me excited to get to it. 

As for the current one that I have, my mind tells me that I should stick to it and soak everything that I will come across up.  The stubborn side of me cannot stand the idea of throwing in the towel before I have had a good fight.  But my feelings are begging me to hold out for something that will make me really happy.