Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

It was another insane week at work. Too much to do, not though time to do it, and no one around to teach me how to do the things.

To make matters worse, on Monday metro had a meltdown that forced me to take a bus out of dc. It took me an hour. And that doesn't count the time it then took to catch another bus to where I parked my car and drive home. I didn't get home until 8. I wanted to cry.

On Thursday, I ended up working until well after 6. And I still only managed to finish half the things I needed to do. I'm not looking forward to going back on Monday.

Others in the office have told me that my supervisors do nothing but praise me. I wonder if that's true, because they certainly aren't saying anything positive to me.

*sigh* I really hope things get better soon. I'm not sure how much more I can take.

My first week of work was crazy.

When I arrived on saturday, everyone told me how happy they were to see me. Then they threw a giant pile of work at my head. :P

So apparently my predecessor left rather abruptly with a package in the works but very far behind. And no one else knew what to do with it because the woman DID NOT WRITE ANYTHING DOWN. They gave me that package to get out the door. We're still not there, but we are a lot closer than we were before and I have been writing stuff down to make the whole process easier as we get to the end.

Among the problems I've had:
- No contact info for the artist
- No status on draft or reviews of the art
- No indication if the copy was even final
- Specs for the art did not match original specs in the mail plan
- Mail plan didn't have ask build info (telling me how much money we should ask for from donors)
- Data strategy included 3 times more online activists than real donors (online activists are the suckiest type of prospects. you want to only have a few in the mix if you want any at all)

Despite absolutely no orientation training beyond "this is how you log into your computer" I have managed to keep this disaster floating at least. I hope at some point I will be given some training.

Aside from that crazy situation, the place seems nice. They threw a big welcome lunch for me the first day. And everyone has been very helpful when I come panicking to them because something else in that horrible nightmare project has exploded.

I share an office with a woman fresh out of college. She doesn't know anything about marketing at all so they have had to train her every day on everything. I didn't require that sort of training, so I was told by multiple people on Friday that I was "a rockstar" for being able to jump into the project and hit the ground running.

My clients are African Wildlife Federation, Food and Water Watch, and Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. It's a good mix, I think. I was afraid of getting clients with goals I didn't agree with, but these are all pretty good. (I'd be happier if that last one wasn't religious, but you can't win all battles.)

The workload is a little stressful right now (I had to work late on the first day!) but hopefully once I get more stuff written down, the madness will abate. I can't believe the previous woman never wrote anything down. How did she get anything done?

Anyway, other than that, life goes on as usual. I took Noname to the vet today. She developed a rash. I thought it might be the same rash Maggie had a little while ago, but it didn't respond to the medicine I had leftover from Maggie's treatment (just a solution to wash the region) so I made an appointment to get it checked out.

The vet said it probably started like Maggie's rash, but because Noname was licking it all the time, she introduced even worse bacteria that for some reason was resistant to the old medicine. So now she has a bottle of antibiotics and a bottle of antihistamines. Between the two, the rash should clear up and Noname should stop licking it. However, they didn't have any medicine around the office small enough for my dog! So I have to break up tiny capsules and roll them in cheese or something similar to deliver the medication. The vet even had me do a practice run in the office to make sure I could do it correctly.

After that adventure, I returned home to help stain the deck. During the summer, we only applied one coat before the heat wave hit and we couldn't work outside at all. Then came the rain that didn't stop for a month. The single coat didn't hold up well to that abuse at all. So now we have to completely start over. Ben worked on the floor while I did the tiny stupid details on the railings. I didn't finish, but the railings were in much better condition than the floor. Ben is going to apply a second coat tomorrow. I will probably work on the railings as I have time in the coming weeks.

I need to go shopping today. I don't want to though, cause I have no one to go with me. I hate going shopping alone. Shopping is so miserable and boring. I'd at least like some company to talk to.

Not sure where I'm going shopping yet. I need to buy clothes for work. I know they said I could wear jeans, but I'd prefer to look professional for the first week at least. So I want to buy a pair or two of nice pants and maybe some shirts.

I also want to clean my sewing table to so I can sew some nice clothes to wear.

Just accepted the position with Defenders of Wildlife! Yay! I start in 2 weeks! I'm so excited!

So, how should I celebrate my new job?