God, I'm sleepy. Who would have thought that officework would be so exhausting?

Well, anyway, today was my first day at My First Real Job. I think I might call it that from now on because it reminds me of Barbie in the '80s.

I got there at 10, as did a woman who was also starting today, Cathy, who was a lot shorter and older than me. We were briefed by a woman named Connie, who is just like what you'd expect a Connie to be. The computer monitors in Quality Control are just like mine at home -- Philips 107S. Sadly, however, our server(s) can barely handle the InTRAnet that we use to edit reports, let alone the InTERnet, so other than company e-mail (which I don't have yet, and which probably will not be fun anyway, because of spying) that means no Internet all day, even during breaks, for however long I work there. Man, and I thought that my friends who could sneak on every now and then had it tough! I'm so deprived. When I'm in a bad mood that sounds terrible; but when I'm in a good mood, I'm like, "Well, kids in school aren't on the Internet either" and "You don't make money sitting at home on the computer all day, and it's not like anything happens." Most of the people I like to talk to online and e-mail are home at night as well. The only thing is that I won't get to talk to Manashi very often, but there is such a thing as the phone. Speaking of which, now I can get money and buy my beloved phone cards! Hurray.

So enough of my information technology communication worries for now, although I might bitch about it in the future. I have to wean myself. God, that sounds terrible. Anyway.

There are about 10 or so people in QC, and three of them are women (girls? Are we girls or women? My parents got visibly nervous when I described them as "women my age" and I felt odd saying it) about my own age, maybe a little older. I might be able to convert them. Hee hee. These girls are Laura, Jennifer and Susan. I like Laura the most so far, because she has glasses and a Siamese fighting fish on her desk (the glasses are on her face, not her desk; anyway), and she's friendly. The others are very nice too, though.

So Connie showed us the various things we would be doing -- auditing, calling and editing, mainly. By 12:30 I was having a hard time concentrating and jumped at the chance for my hour lunch break. My dad came to get me and we went to the nearby Chick-Fil-A, which was the busiest Chick-Fil-A I'd ever seen, possibly the busiest fast food restaurant I'd ever seen. I was wondering why there were all these kids around, and then I noticed that they were wearing school uniforms for Wesleyan, the nearby private school. Damned private school kids, getting to go off-campus for lunch. Fuckers. Anyway, I'll have to remember that there will be crowds at certain times of the day. There are dozens of places to eat quite close by, which is good. I can walk if I have to, and there's variety.

I like doing editing best; that just involves changing information on the computer. I haven't really done any auditing yet. The aptly-labeled "calling" involves calling either a shopper or a store and clarifying things; there's a lot more to remember, like, Can you say that you're from Shop'n Chek? I find it mildly interesting to call a Sam's Club in Indiana and be greeted by a bored-sounding young girl, or talking to a nice man with an accent in Minnesota. I hate leaving messages though. I suck at it sometimes. I'll get the hang of it. I had practice at Atlanta magazine. I get kind of nervous when coworkers can hear me on the phone.

After that, later in the afternoon, since there wasn't much work lying around to process, Jennifer opened a tray of identical-looking pieces of mail from shoppers, and we pulled out the insides and flattened them out and stapled the receipts if they weren't already stapled. I know that sounds boring, and it was, but not in a horrible way. It was kind of therapeutic. Then I opened some mail. That too was boring in a soothing way. We discussed dress code. Apparently that's the only thing that the employees, particularly the female ones, have problems with, because the codes are narrow. Sometimes we do have jeans days, though.

After I got off work we went to Costco to get my Epson 880 printer, because we got a coupon several weeks ago that only started today.

Tomorrow will be a long day, because after work I have to go to a survey; this will be one of the fun ones, though, because it'll be almost exactly like the 99x radio one I took months ago. You just listen to snippets of music for two hours and rate them, and then you get $50. It rules. The 99x one was great because it reminded me of my high school and college years. Oh, the Proustianness.

Man, I hope all the entries now that I have a job won't be this boring.

Oh, if you haven't seen my new posties yet, go see them!