6 Month Review

As of this week, I've been at my job for 6 months. It still feels right. I like feeling productive and competent, and there's plenty of room to learn. They seem happy with me, too, which is always nice - as is getting paid regularly. But it's not a fit for everyone. My semi-cubicle-mate (we have "secretary" cubes, with a low, 3-foot wall between desks to allow for chatting, although there's precious little of that) started 2 weeks before I did but left on Friday. A young woman who started the same day I did quit after 2 months, and a guy who'd been there a couple of years left last month. None of them left for other jobs, they just didn't like the work. Two new writers started in the past couple of months. We've had several welcome and going away lunches.

I work in an area that's separated from the main herd by virtue of office geography. I say "herd" because the cubicles upstairs in the main part of the building look a bit like cattle stalls to me. Row upon row of 3 cubes, and it's quiet as a library. Since it's writing work, it really does require quiet because it's awfully hard to write with conversations going on around you. My little pod, perhaps because there are fewer of us, or the outgoing nature of the more senior person there brings it out in the rest of us, is a bit more gregarious. Fridays tend to get particularly chatty (well, chatty for writers not for, say, sales people). If I'm not in the midst of trying to craft sentences out of unwieldy content by deadline, I'm greatly relieved by a little interaction with the others once in awhile. While I was used to working at home alone, there's something weird about working among people who are all mostly ignoring each other.

I can't decide if this job is making me more introverted than when I was just home alone. It's extremely focused work. You're in your own head, processing, concentrating, and when someone interrupts to talk to you, it can feel like you're swimming up from the bottom of a deep lake. What's more, it can be exhausting. I went out after work last Friday night and though I felt like being sociable, I was fried and had to leave after the first set of music. Of course it's also winter; when it was still light after work I went out more. But the long hours do make a difference. When I met Island Man last June, before I started my job, I was a lot more open and relaxed than when he was visiting in August. Although, I was also still adjusting to the job.

Well, off to the movies. Speaking of introversion, I planned no socializing this weekend, in large part because they were predicting freezing rain (now not due until late tomorrow). I have plenty to do at home. But I feel like the corner may be turning somewhat on this hibernation. I'm feel more antsy to get out and see people. We'll see...

Comments

[charlie]

How interesting that you should work as a writer in this fashion. If you don't mind me asking, what sort of writing work do you do? And, yes, writing of any sort is a tiring business so if you are at it all day long, it's hardly surprising you are less than keen on socialising.

charlie

[leslee]

It's medical writing. We develop sales training programs, usually interactive and mostly about disease states but also on the drugs and what they do. I used to do similar work in high tech, so I'm finding this a lot more interesting - the human body versus computer systems. Thanks for asking.

Oh, I should also mention that every sentence we write is referenced to something - textbook, journal article, drug package insert. It's pretty intense.

[charlie]

Thank you. Fascinating stuff and, as you say, I imagine it's pretty intense. Socialising will be important, though.

[MB]

Leslee, I missed this post somehow. Glad to hear that the job is working out, at least for the time being. I don't know if it is what you are feeling, but I'm definitely beginning to feel the itch that begins for me on the downhill side of winter — an itch for light, for movement, for other people, for levity. I can imagine both your energy and attention might ebb and flow around this work.

[leslee]

Yeah, usually I think it waits until February, after a healthy quiet break following the hectic Christmas-New Year time, but it's starting already. The last two years around now I've been busy planning vacations for March, but it's all up in the air this year. Plus the change of having a job. Yes, an itch for all those things you mentioned.