Well of course, I'm the only cat of my kind

2004-11-16 - 7:32 p.m.

So yesterday, after completing my "onboarding" session and getting my PPD placed, I went back to my apartment and gave my boss a call to double-check what time he wanted me to come in the next day. He wasn't in his office, so I left a message. Then I went out grocery shopping and to the library and what not. When I got back to my apartment a little after five, there was a message from my boss in my voice mail. He said that he had expected me to show up in the pharmacy immediately following my onboarding session.

Yeah, so I guess I officially skipped my first day of work. Only, no! I clearly have written down in my notes that I took during all of our previous phone calls that the onboarding session was to be Monday and my first day was to be Tuesday. Surely I didn't just pull that out of thin air to write down. Ergh. So anyway, I went to work today and there didn't seem to be any hard feelings over our little misunderstanding. It certainly wasn't the way I wanted to start things off, though.

But anyway, on my way to the library from my apartment, if I take the shortest route, I end up walking straight through a park. As I was walking through the park yesterday, I passed one of the pharmacists from my pharmacy. I met him very briefly during my interview and hadn't seen him since. I said, "Hi!" loudly and cheerily and it became very apparent that he didn't remember me. He just sort of gave me an awkward nod and walked right on by. I couldn't remember his name at the time but he looks like a "Tom" to me so for that reason I've decided to refer to him as O'Malley here (ever seen Disney's "The Aristocats?"). I saw O'Malley today in the pharmacy and I'm pretty sure he remembered me from the park because he was more chatty with me than he needed to be (and more chatty than anyone else was, too). And the best part? He's taller than me, older than me but still youngish, moderately good-looking, and there are no rings on any of his fingers. Hmmm...

OK, so today I was in the pharmacy all day, but I did no pharmacy work. It was a day of tours that pointed out fire extinguishers, chemo spill kits, and fridge overtemp alarms. It was a day of taking tests about my ability to handle bomb threats to my ability to handle doctors who refuse to use the proper abbreviations. It was a day of extreme boredom, let me tell you. How long can a girl look interested and enthusiastic about her new job when subjected to such conditions? I tried my best. Tomorrow I'm supposed to be able to start doing some hands on work. It's sort of funny because they keep telling me how I shouldn't worry because they're not going to throw me into any situation I'm not ready for 'cause I'll have weeks and weeks of training while the last job I had was doing relief work which was exactly the opposite--every day being thrown into a new situation with no specific training. Right now I'm sort of longing for the relief work. Let me at it, already!

As far as the apartment goes, well, I'm still living out of boxes and I still have no furniture. Tyrannosaurus Rex lives next door to me in the apartment that borders my bedroom and when he walks my whole bedroom floor shakes. So I've moved my "bed" (a sleeping bag on top of a pile of blankets) into the living room and this seems to have helped with that problem.

Yesterday around 4pm my DSL modem came knocking on my door via the UPS delivery guy. My phone was supposed to be hooked up at 5, so I had to wait. Come 5 my phone still didn't work. At 6 I called tech support to see why my phone wasn't working. They threatened to send a technician out and charge me $85 for the pleasure should the problem not turn out to be their fault, but then they realized that it was their fault after all and they got it fixed at around 7:30 without sending any technicians or charging any money. So then I called and activated my cell phone (which took forever!) and then set up my DSL. So it was a bit of a hassle, but I'm all set up now, at least as far as communications go.

And the apartment maintenance guys made a visit to my apartment today while I was at work. I now have a functional microwave (hooray!), a lid to my toilet, a handle for my oven that doesn't fall off when I pull it, and a bathroom and kitchen faucet which both turn on quite nicely. Now my issue is with my door lock. There are actually two, but one of them has this problem of not unlocking when I want it to. Seriously. The first time it happened I put my key in and turned, but my key turned and the lock didn't. I took the key out and it was twisted. I had a spare, but it was inside. Luckily that time the office was open so I could get a spare and that one worked just fine. I assumed the problem was a weak key. But today it happened again when I came home from work. Only I was more careful and didn't bend my key. And I had two keys on my keychain just in case. Neither would work. I tried and tried. On the verge of tears I went for a walk to cool off and decide what to do next--the office wasn't open. I went back to the door, though, and this time, still with difficulty, I managed to open it. So from now on I'm not locking that lock. Just the other one. At least until I can get it fixed.