Summary: The office has four rooms. Two decent sized and well-lit one-man offices for the CEOs, one medium-sized room that the hallway opens up to with my desk and the designer's and another large room off to the side, holding another programmer hostage to silence as he focuses on whatever frustratingly tedious programming task needs to be done by the end of the day. The phone has three lines. Everybody has an extension, (but as the official not-actually-a-secretary, I'm in charge of screening them all.) The bosses walk around barefoot and shout to each other in Hebrew. One smiles and winks a lot. The other is uncomfortable holding eye-contact for extended periods of time. They both encourage being outspoken and openly joke about unprofessional things. There's Budweiser with Lime in the mini-fridge. I am the only woman. The temperature is 68F. The web site needs to be redesigned and revised and they need to create and implement a marketing campaign.
Pros:
- Everybody's friendly. There's no stuffy atmosphere: "She's not in the IT department, so who gives a shit?"
- It's so small, it doesn't take long to get to know people.
- Straight out of college with a title like "Director of Marketing."
- Swearing out of frustration is expected.
- I don't have to spend a gajillion credit bucks on dress clothes.
- I don't have to spend a gajillion credit bucks on dress clothes. (Yeah, that needed to be listed twice.)
- Having a job.
Cons:
- You can't hide when you're in a terrible mood.
- You really get to know people.
- Everybody hears when you answer the phone and stutter because it still makes you nervous. Yeah, it's just answering the phone but jeez there are a lot of buttons. And a whole computer system too. bah.
- It's freezing.
- Straight out of college with a title like "Director of Marketing."
- The title without the pay.
- Having a job.
- That really cute twenty-something from the other job is still at the other job.
That's all I've got this far. I can feeeeeellll the pressure and am beyond anxious to prove myself while I'm still not over feeling like I don't have to prove myself. The first day went well. It was supposed to be part time, but that lasted approximately three hours and was concluded with a discussion about how it's pertinent for me to be involved in everything. Other than the fact that I have serious issues with manning the phones, which hopefully won't get me fired, I think this is a great first job and transition into the professional world. (So they aren't very professional in the suit-wearing, hob-knobbing, beat-around-the-bush sort of way, it's still an office with responsibilities and goals and achievements.)
Besides, we're only posing. For now, anyway.
(Colin here; totally stalking your blog from Facebook!)
ReplyDeleteI signed on as a student assistant at the LGBT Resource Center last year knowing full well that phone-answering would be part of the job. "No problem," I told myself, despite my well-documented phone phobia. "I am a smart, competent, courteous individual, and I can handle this." Right?
...Yeeeah. That didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Every time I'd answer the phones and have to transfer a call, I'd forget some step of the process. Or I'd forget to take the name of callers, or screw up in some other little way, or generally be a total failure at something as simple as ANSWERING a PHONE. It took me--no joke--a semester and a half before I got to a point where I DIDN'T break out in a flop sweat whenever the phone rang.
So, in short: I feel your pain. Hee. Also, I am pathetic.
Glad to hear your first day went well; I hope it keeps up!