I'm finding some things about the training a difficult adjustment. It's one of those "be careful what you wish for - you might get it" things. In my case, it's the professional work environment.

This company, has always been a lot more laid back than many other places where I've worked. It has to do with the nature of the product we provide. Of course, there are time limits, and consequences to being short staffed, but, as The Hub used to say, "We're not shippin' meat here" That was when The Hub was shipping cars. He couldn't understand why somebody couldn't wait two days rather than one for their new gas guzzler - but the salesman was convinced the customer would go elsewhere.

But, I digress....

The thing here is that there is less emphasis on doing things fast and more emphasis on doing things correctly, which should be a dream come true. If you work in a "production" type of environment, which I always seem to have done, the boss will say they want things done fast AND done right....but that's not what they want, really. They mean they want things done fast with a low number of mistakes, even if it is possible to get something 100% right by going 1% slower. They particularly want a low number of mistakes which can be traced to them and/or their department. These kinds of work environments are easily identifiable by their productivity reports. Every place I've worked there have been numbers that show how much work I am doing compared to how much work everybody else is doing. And I've always done a lot of work, sometimes without even trying too hard. And, given the choice between doing all but the most mind numbing of tasks and talking I'll pick the task every time. There is nothing as relaxing or satisfying as seeing a heaped up "out" basket.

You know what it is? It's instant gratification. Instant validation. My ex-husband was pretty convinced that I was (am?) a workaholic. At times I could see his point. If I can be said to have an addiction it is to the words "what would we do without you?"

Of course, another part of me was always frustrated, because I could always see how to make things better / smoother / easier / less toxic in the long run. But time went by, life got difficult, and I was some how able to accept the fact that I was not getting paid to think about the long run, I was getting paid to produce. Thinking about the long run was somebody elses problem, somebody with more perks, more freedom, no one jumping on their back if they were ten minutes late or got up and walked around the office to think. Why do their work for them, when they had plenty of time to do it themselves?

Except for now I am supposed to think about the long run. The whole job is all about the long run, about the risk of mortality over 10, 15, even 30 years. It's my job and the job of all of my new co-workers. And, since I'm in training, and for a trainee to do well she has to learn, that is now my job. I'm being paid to learn.

Such a thing has never happened to me in my life. It was cool for the first two days. Now, instead of adjusting and fitting in, I'm freaking out. It doesn't help that I have the head cold from hell and have taken so much nasal decongestant that there is a significant slow down in the amount of time it takes my brain to process things like words. Every day I ask myself: do I understand well enough? Did I really get the point of the reading? Did I understand the lecture? Am I looking at the right sites on the internet? Is the way I'm organizing my notes really any good?

We had a quiz today and I was the last to finish. I think I did badly because I was so tired I had taken a nap in the car on my lunch hour and had literally just woken up. There is so little objective feedback and there are so many opportunities to screw up! How will I ever make it over here?

I hope I feel better once this cold goes away. After all, how posative can you be about things when you can't even breathe?