As a corollary to my thread about one thing that you really, really hate…
I’ve worked in offices that have a lot of women that were pure hell. Cliques, with back-stabbing, gossipping bitches. The kind of women that would make a weaker woman run from the office crying, I’ve seen it!
At my current job, it’s not like that. Even though it’s mostly women, we all pretty much get along. We have our moments of sniping, and there’s plenty of gossip, but for the most part we’re all pretty friendly with each other. I don’t wake up in the morning dreading work. I feel liked, accepted, and a real part of a cohesive team. I love that. The longer I’m there, the more I’m seen by the others as a leader, and I like that, because I am a natural leader, so it’s nice to be valued and appreciated by my supervisor and my coworkers.
Now if I could only get a vacation, my work life would be perfect.
A student told another teacher that I was “the only genius [he’d] ever met”. He’s young yet, and there’s other stuff I like better, but this was Friday and I am still floating just a little.
Well, it is challenging, etc., but the latest perk is the young lady who has taken up residence in the cube outside my office. Incredibly pretty, and she wears short skirts.
I like that my job is somewhat romanticized for no apparent reason. I work for the railroad. It’s pretty neat to see people getting out of their cars with their kids at railroad crossings to wave to us. And there are rail buffs and photographers who will wait just to see a train pass by them. I suppose the longer the train the better.
To me it’s weird because we’re really just moving huge hunks of metal from one place to another and in many ways being surrounded by all that metal and the mechanics of it all is depressing.
But I’m coming from a job that people cringe when I tell them what I do/did, so it’s nice.
I can save $135 a month by taking a trolley and bus directly to and from, with no significant walking required. There’s also a bus that goes directly to and from the nearest mall’s food court from work.
I only have to put up with asshole coworkers and bosses for four months at a time (sometimes less).
Relations between coworkers are not at all frowned-upon.
Although it’s full-time, I only have to show up to work for 18 hours a week.
Every single one of my bosses has had my job for at least four years.
No one boss has total control of my direction.
I’m never supervised against my will while doing my work, but my bosses will gladly help if I ask.
I can dress however I want. I can put on a skirt/dress and look really pretty, or I can put on mud-caked pants, raggedy sneakers, and a holey t-shirt. This means I don’t have to put a lot of money into my wardrobe, nor deal with the drag of wearing a goofy uniform.
We have a fairly permissive dress code (anything goes so long as it’s clean, inoffensive, and non-revealing) and sales reps bring me beer samples almost daily.
I’m trained as a Family Medicine specialist, which includes training in surgery. Some of my colleagues do hernia repairs, appendectomies, C-sections and so forth, but I do just some minor stuff like incising and draining, biopsying and removing surface lesions, cyst and some foreign body removals (think bullets) and so forth. I am duly licensed to practice medicine and surgery in my state.
The very best thing about my job as a Google Answers Researcher is that I can work when I am able to do so, and take time off when I am too ill to work. I can earn money even while lying in bed naked, which is true of few professions other than the World’s Oldest.
I have an actual office (not a cubicle) with a window that I can open for fresh air and a door I can close to keep out noise.
My boss (who is also the owner and president of the company) is very patient with my progress in learning an entirely new industry, and is forgiving of mistakes. He also likes candles. It’s kind of cool that people have different scented candles burning in their work areas.
I am enjoying learning all the new stuff. I talk to people literally all over the country and sometimes overseas, every day. The company is in international freight forwarding. I get little pieces of other people’s lives and try to imagine exactly why that gentleman in Texas is selling the huge paper-cutting machine to the fellow in Dubai. (He is very pleased when I am able to find someone for him who will pack the humongous thing up in a way that will meet international shipping requirements.) Or what kind of lamps that company in New York is making that they are importing hundreds of pounds of large wooden lamp bases from the Netherlands. Why does somebody in the Dominican Republic need to import literally tons and tons of baking mix from Seattle? Do you know how much it costs to ship a 40-foot container from Seattle to the Caribbean? A lot.
Sure. They took a bullet, then didn’t go to a doctor or hospital because then it would be reported. Or they did go, but it wasn’t medically indicated that the bullet be removed. Frankly, fishing for bullets which are sitting quietly inside someone is a dangerous hobby.
But months or years or decades later, some bullets eventually migrate towards the surface, where they cause a painful swelling. Then I go get them. Often I think I’m just opening up an abscess, and out comes a bullet along with the other debris.
Patients. You never know what’ll pop out of them. That’s why it’s important to wear protective gear.