Settling in, uneasily

For those of you who have spoken to me over the last month or so, you already know my situation at work has been a bit rocky with uncertainty and miscommunication. Well, at the end of my first week in my new management position, things appear to be going more smoothly than they were the past two weeks when I was on my own, without my minions. Our office is full of summer student interns - all completely brilliant and totally overqualified for the tasks they're doing (in many, but not all cases - some of the work is pretty awesome) - and things are flying along at breakneck, hair-pulling pace.

Somewhere within all this mix, I seem to have developed a little cocoon of safety from the intense scrutiny I had become accustomed to when the office was more empty. Though we are a nonprofit, it should be understood that we are run very much like a corporate entity, with constant oversight, micromanaging, and 'Tough Love'-style motivation tactics. What doesn't kill or drive us mad here is supposed to be a learning experience that makes us stronger. This includes overtime without pay, apparently.

It has been interesting to see the new blood coming in and realizing what they've signed up for; most of them, like me, come from liberal arts backgrounds, and are feeling the cold shock of an entirely different style of work environment. Friends have often heard me employ the term the Seagull Boss in relation to some of my interactions here - while those experiences were frustrating and even infuriating to have had personally, I have to admit they're really funny to watch unfold as an outsider. There is a moment, just after someone checks their morning emails and lets out the telltale exasperated grunt, or when I hear someone being called into the office, where I snicker and imagine Keyboard Cat getting ready to play as failure ensues.

Today I actually received a positive comment in response to something I emailed and nearly crapped myself, so hopefully that means I've figured out the formula and will be relatively grief-free for the next eight weeks. Like a beaten child I am wary of shows of kindness out of the blue, and hesitantly wait for things to go back to the usual attempts at trying to pass under the radar. More to come.

Lack of energy

This week I'm going through a bad spell of insomnia (it always seems to happen after extended weekends, probably because I sleep so much during them). Yesterday it was almost impossible to keep my eyes open, yet when I finally got home and into bed, I wanted to read all night; that's what I get for being involved in a good book! Anyway, today I am going to try some different things to increase my energy to get through the day (that, hopefully, don't involve caffeine), but will tire me out in time for sleep. These will include drinking one extra britta pitcher of water to keep hydrated, and going to the gym over my lunch break to get my three miles in. I figure that an hour lunch break should be enough time to walk to the gym from my office, run, stretch a bit, walk back (this place is huge, so those walks actually take a few minutes), change out of my exercise clothes, clean up, and get back to work. I'm actually wearing my workout gear under my street clothing right now in order to save time. We'll see how it goes! I'll have more to report later.

Austounding feats of animal strength and cunning

In the last 48 hours, my place of employment has gone from quiet library to amateur hour for Wild Kingdom; I guess that's not all that surprising, considering that one of my closest work friends blows up snakes (literally) and scrutinizes jars of pickled reptiles for genitalia for a living.

Yesterday it was The Great Escape, starring one very large and determined millipede from the entomology collections department. At about 1pm, during a lull, my boss noticed what she believed to be a fat pen cap begin to move of its own power on the floor of the library reading room; upon closer analysis, she determined that the possessed writing accessory was actually a medium-sized brown diplopod creeping its way across the burgundy carpet. The AWOL millipede was quickly scooped up, not by me, and taken back to his lair about three halls over. Three halls may not sound like a long way to anyone else, but in a massive building like The Field Museum, to a small critter, it's probably a full day's journey. That's a lot of determination shown on the part of one little bug; undoubtedly he was drawn to the library by the smell of my fear.

Today it is The Field Museum Library's adaptation of The Birds, featuring one very cunning sparrow that is currently hiding out in the main stacks. The threat of the intruder has been minimized, and pest control has been called, but it remains to be seen whether or not the bird will be camping out here over the Thanksgiving holiday break. While all of this initially struck me as being pretty funny, the novelty quickly wore off when the icy reality hit me that as the circulations grunt, the task would fall to me to clean all the bird shit off the books after all is said and done. God's speed, Sergio the pest guy.