i still have one more DAY?!

lordy! i was ready for the weekend, like, two days ago!

i am seriously whupped. my mom says that being unemployed for a long period of time has probably spoiled me. i think she's right. i'm still sleeping poorly at night, and when i'm at work, i have to sit through long periods of having absolutely nothing to do. i have my own office, which is twice the size of the office i had when i last worked in a bureaucracy, and it's been great to have that bit of privacy. and yet i have to at least look like i'm busy -- which is harder and more tiring than it sounds.

:-T

i've learned, though, that every friday at the office is casual friday.

not just business casual (i checked and double-checked and triple-checked). but casual.

"you mean jeans are okay?" i asked the co-worker who told me.

"yeah," she said.

"and even sneakers?" i asked in disbelief.

"yes," she said.

". . . . what about tees?" i asked.

"casual friday," she repeated to me, giving me a dirty look, as if i were a lame f.o.b. who couldn't understand a lick o' english.

but i still didn't believe her and asked two other people. they confirmed it and looked just as annoyed as my co-worker did. so i think i believe them now.

i'm just not used to the idea that it's okay to really dress down on fridays.

but still, i'm looking forward to it! i love my jeans no matter what! you can turn a tomboy into a girl, but you can't ever take the tomboy out of a girl!

ever since i began working at this particular office, i've been noticing that we sure are in the news a lot lately. ours is the largest department in the state, with tens of thousands employees all up and down the state. it's been quite an eye-opening experience for me. anyhow, a lot of the stuff that's been popping up in the news about this department hasn't been per se very positive. . . .

despite the slowness of the work-flow, i did get asked to do at least a few minor tasks. haven't been given anything really hard or strenuous to do. i think my immediate boss is just so used to juggling a gazillion tasks by herself that it might take a while for her to delegate. at the same time, i think i've already earned her trust -- and we get along so great!

i've mentioned before that she has a brusque attitude and that she's a special assistant to a pretty high-level figure within our department. so she's always been quite brusque with me -- short in her comments but not in a way that's rude or anything -- just business-like.

today, she had a meeting downtown (our office isn't located downtown but in a low-income area), and she decided to take me along and assigned me to do some tasks in anticipation of the meeting. she drove us in her really nice, slick car, and during the car-ride, to and from that meeting, we seriously hit it off like nothing else.

are we pretty much on b.f.f. status?

uh -- YEAH!

from our conversations, i learned that she and i are practically neighbors -- she lives just down the road from me. and we just have a lot of commonalities. she looks like she's about the same age as my mom -- and she mentioned that she was looking to retire in a couple of years -- so i seriously would be surprised if she weren't born in the same year as my mom: the year of the dragon.

trust me on this. astrology may have its strange nuances and be a crock of shit sometimes. but what's been true for me is that dragons and i get along pretty damned well.

and i'm finding it quite easy to make friends with everyone else at the office as well. not that there are very many people with whom to make enemies. :-P but one of my co-workers also said that just the fact that i'm working directly for a higher-up means will encourage people to not fuck around with me.

well, she didn't say that exactly, but that's the gist.

power! it seems awful nice to have power.

but frankly, if i had to choose, i think i'd prefer money over power any day.

who knows, maybe i'll forgo grad school this year because of this job. but why does the very idea make me feel like i'm selling out my own soul?

:(