First week at the new job

Now it is time to post about my new job!

The best thing so far about my new job is all the great people! Also it’s good to just be back into it. Even though this particular job is new, so much about the office environment is familiar, and I definitely have been missing it. I feel like I’m part of a team again.

MONDAY:

The first day was somewhat stressful because I had to meet everyone, and I promptly forgot all their names. Not only did I forget all the names, I couldn’t even remember who I had met and who I hadn’t met. “Did I meet you already? No? Ok. Hi, I’m Kristina.”

Monday evening I had two clients scheduled, but one requested a reschedule, so I had just one client. A good thing, because it had been a long day!

TUESDAY

Woke up with a mild migraine, took my meds right away and was fine the rest of the day. Whew!

Second day was lots of HR stuff – signing millions of documents. I got my badge – but they put the wrong name on it! I had to go back and get another badge 🙂 There’s a separate card to unlock the building, but mine doesn’t work.

Oh, and they gave me a hat. And a t-shirt! Here I am in my new hat. Now I’m official LOL!

One great thing about working for the state is I can take pictures of things for this blog (you can’t take photos at Sandia).

Two clients on Tuesday night. A busy day!

WEDNESDAY:

For the rest of the week my whole department has training. The training is being held at a different location than our office – about a mile away. It’s a very fancy building. Wouldn’t it be nice to work here everyday?

There are balconies off the second story with tables. If I worked here, I would be working on the balcony!

At the training I met a ton more people. Everyone keeps asking me where I’m from. I don’t know what to say to that. Where am I from? Placitas? Sandia? California? Albuquerque?

They also want to know where I’m living (or how long is my commute). Equally confusing. Placitas? My friend’s casita? Buying a townhome? “So your husband’s going to commute?” Uh…no…I needed to have rehearsed simplistic answers ahead of time, because I am confusing everyone and totally failing the “Who are you?” quiz. But there just aren’t simplistic answers. A lot of people commute all the way from Albuquerque, which is even further than Placitas. So I think it seems odd to them that I’m moving here without John. I’m not mentioning my reasons…clients and migraines. In an ideal world, those things wouldn’t reflect badly on me. But in the real world, some people (like my previous boss at Sandia!), imagined I was less of an employee because of these things.

I’ve also discovered I have a certain amount of reluctance to say much about my kids (sorry guys!). It’s not that I’m not proud of my kids! But most people in my new office are a lot younger than me (unlike Sandia, where they’re all old, LOL). Anyway, when I start talking about my kids, pretty soon it’s obvious from the context that my kids are all grown up. And then my coworker’s eyes get big and they look at me like, “OMG you’re OLD!” Of course they don’t actually say that, but that’s what their faces say, and then I really do feel old. I think my boss is my daughter’s age. Not exaggerating. But she is very sweet 🙂

I’m sure I’ll relax after I get to know people. But I was not treated well at Sandia in California, so…once bit, twice shy, I guess. Now that I’m being treated with respect, I’m almost angry about how badly I was treated at Sandia. The difference is stark. It’s like I’m only fully realizing it now because it was subtle (but pervasive). When I first started that job I was very unhappy and I didn’t understand why. Four years later, when I quit that job, I still didn’t fully understand why I was quitting. But now I can’t believe I put up with it for as long as I did.

Two clients Wednesday night. This week is flying by!

THURSDAY:

Woke up with a bit worse of a migraine than Tuesday. So I got up soon as I woke up and started my migraine prevention routine. (This amount of migraine days is typical, BTW, and not due to the new job. Commonly 2-4 days a week, but usually under control and able to continue with my day.)

The casita I’m renting is only 5 minutes from where the training is being held, so I was also able to go home at lunchtime to do more migraine prevention. My new townhome will be about twice as far, but still only 10 minutes; still possible to go home for lunch if needed.

Here’s the other, more fun, advantage of being close enough to go home for lunch. Mmmmmm.

Only one client on Thursday night. She’s a new client, and it was her very first session. Initial sessions can be more of a challenge, but it seemed to go very well. And I kept the migraine under control all day, yay!

FRIDAY:

I just realized that I had failed to collect payment from a recent client prior to our session. I always require payment ahead of time, and I had in my mind that she had paid – but she hadn’t. This session was just a one-time session (sometimes people do just want one consultation). I can bill her retroactively, of course, but it’s highly unlikely she’ll pay now. Plus the session itself was difficult – upsetting for me. Sometimes people – and their lives – are not easy for me to deal with. Ugh, well, I just need to shake that off. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to continuing with my new client from Thursday night. She’s now scheduled regularly for Mondays and I know I will enjoy working with her.

Currently most of my clients are in their twenties, and trying to get their careers going (with their parents paying for the coaching). It’s a hard time of life. But my clients who are a decade or two older and in the midst of everything – children, career setbacks, deteriorating relationships – it seems like that’s even harder.

Particularly the relationship struggles – it’s the same stuff over and over. In our society we do not seem to know – or at least don’t widely teach – how to communicate in a relationship.  There’s some basics that would make such a big difference if people were simply taught. It would have saved me a lot of grief in my own life if I known more, sooner, about communication.

On Friday night I drove back to Placitas. The evening light through the clouds was amazing and it was very beautiful. But I passed the remnants of two recent car wrecks as I drove home. I feel so bad for everyone who has to make that commute twice each day. And I only have to do it twice a week.

After I got home last night, John and I went on a short walk to see the rest of the sunset. The sky was doing crazy, strange things as usual. New Mexico definitely has the best sunsets of anywhere I’ve ever lived.