Work

I think I mentioned that I got a new job at the beginning of this month. Full time. Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. The real deal. I’m in an evaluation period right now, but everything points to this being a great fit. I’m currently the Front Office Coordinator or the FOC for Express Professionals here in town. There’s so much to learn and some of it is starting to sink in–the rhythms of the week, the humor of my coworkers, the beauty and idiosyncrasies of human behavior.

The first couple of weeks were really challenging just because I had had such an amorphous schedule for so many months before going back to work. Prior to Bryan getting sick, I worked only parttime so that I could focus on my art and jewelry. Before that I worked very different hours at Shop Eleven. A couple of things that I’ve noticed with the new schedule–I have gotten a lot better at Gantt-charting my days and week; I can get a lot of errands done over the course of a lunch break, and the time, weirdly, goes incredibly quickly.

Things I’m learning and re-learning are the importance of hospitality and grace. I’m also discovering that for every person who complains of hurdles, there’s another one working their damnedest to obliterate them. I find helping match people with their interests and skills to gainful employment very compelling; my colleagues work incredibly hard to make that happen.

Finding the right balance of work, art, jewelry, writing, walking at Mill Creek, spending time with friends is really challenging. I don’t have it all figured out. For this first month, time has largely been split between work and painting. Jewelry has taken a back seat, so has the blog and my other creative writing endeavors. My brain tries to tell me I’m bad, a failure, or incompetent. I have to remind myself this is winter. Self-loathing in winter has to be taken with a heaping wheelbarrow full of salt. I also have to remember that lots of things are seasonal and some things on the back burner will come to the front eventually