The First Week

You couldn't ask for a better group of people to work with than the staff at the Canyon Courier.

The pace has been a challenge for me to get used to. I'm used to being chained to a desk for 12 hours with few breaks and the humiliation of having to ask someone if I can go to the bathroom. I think Doug has told me a couple times that my time is my own; work for 40 hours a week, don't get burned out, pace yourself and have fun. This is foreign to me.

When you start a job as a secretary, you get the feel you're going to be someone's gopher, someone's "person" to go step, fetch and be "agreeable." Starting this job, I realized that I was being treated as a professional. Treated like someone who has already proven that they have jumped through some hoops and has paid attention to most classes that I've sat in. The "orientation" doesn't mean learning how the boss takes his coffee, but learning what FTP to use when uploading photos, what format captions need to be in and learning what is generally accepted and what isn't.

No one got their knickers in a twist over anything, and I know I was praised more than once this week. That's unusual.

I'm used to people saying things like, "We're so glad you're here, nobody wants to do that job." Stuff like that.

"You handle the phones so well, and you don't seem to notice the noise and chaos."

That's not praise, that's condemnation. I think what they're really saying, is, "Thank God you're dumb enough to do this job."

That's not even anywhere on the agenda at the Courier.

(this paragraph was deleted, because a year later, I learned the truth about what I had said here)

So, it's been stories about the handkerchief lady and photos of a semi upside down in the Platte River. Talk about variety.

It's like a dream, these last few weeks, and I'm afraid it is a dream and I'll wake up and I'll never be anything else other than a secretary. But I did go to school, get my degree, do the work that got me a chance, and now it's all up to me.

The thing that is on my mind is my tiredness. I'm still acclimating to the altitude, the lifestyle, the slower pace. I'm almost afraid to relax, only because I'm not sure I could ever gear myself back up again to keep an insane pace of 12.5 hour days with bells and buzzers, angry patients and people with too much power and not enough sense.

And, no one in sight to give me a bathroom break.