All Aboard Training!

I made it!! Yay! Two weeks in a row posting and I also made it out of the first week of work alive. Cause for celebration and drinking to excess.

Perhaps.

Before my first day of work at TLoTH, many people warned me, in pitying tones, about how awful all that training was going to be. It really psyched me out. I’ve had some pretty terrible trainings over the years. Once, I had to do a Meyers-Briggs on an ancient computer that crashed with one question left. Recently, I was assigned some chemical safety training that was so preposterous my boss cursed out the computer and went to lunch.

But as I actually endeavored upon my first day of work, I found it to be like this:

Time	Event	Presented by
7:30-8:00	New Hire Orientation Check-in	Why didn’t I read the part where I could have showed up at ten past 8?
8:00-8:10	Coffee	This shit’s terrible, shoulda gone to sbux.
8:10-8:25	Welcome	She was actually really nice, kind and welcoming.
8:25-9:05	Complete New Hire Forms	Glad I filled mine out in advance. The host lady said no one had ever done that before.
9:05-9:45	Benefits Review/Wellness Center (We will pay you monies for you to loose that flab. Count your steps with our pedometer and create office-wide fitness wars!)	Healthcare!! Check this box to ensure employee+spouse or employee+family (other) receives slightly more than nothing when you die! If you’re single, we feel sad for you.
9:45-9:55	Break	Find bathroom and avoid contact with training classmates
9:55-10:35	Informational Security Briefing	Stephen Hawkings’ less intelligible brother. Just twenty more minutes of agonizingly monotonous computer speech. 19 min. 19:30….
10:35-10:45	Break	Forget the names and professions of everyone I met earlier but commiserate about how terrible that last video was.
10:45-10:55	OMBUDS	We’re your buds, here at the om-buds! No, seriously, come to us. But we can’t guarantee confidentiality.
10:55-11:15	Employee Assistance	We like to help you!
11:15-11:20	Library	We still have a library and librarians are still hott.
11:20-1:00	Lunch	Awkwardly meet new people instead of reading the book you brought. Don’t mention your book is more interesting.
1:00-1:10	Worker Safety & Security	We’ll teach you how to fall properly!!
1:10-1:20	Ethics and Compliance	Do the right thing. Edward Snowden is a bad man. Do the right thing.
1:20-1:30	Harassment in the Workplace	The slow dawning of understanding that the sexual harassment issue I encountered at my last job was handled completely wrong.
1:30-1:40	Break	Trying to decide how to remedy erroneously handled sexual harassment issue.
1:40-2:00	TLoTH Cultural Review	We got really cool stuff, most of which is Native American!
2:00-2:15	Spy-Be-Gone Department	Don’t commit espionage. Not even once. Not even by accident. Ed Snowden is a bad man. Not even once.

But the most important thing I learned from all of my training exercises:

Seriously. He tells you all about ethics and how going postal is bad and all I can think of is “damn, there is a FINE specimen of man.” But in all likelihood, I will do all the things he tells me to do and so the choice of filming him was a good one.

So anyway. You can imagine a week’s worth of days like this and then you’ll pretty much understand what my week was like. ^__^

Tumbleweed>Tumbleweave

So it turns out, I’ve been living a pretty poverty stricken life for the past…7 years? Recently, I got a kush-as-fuck* job with The Lab on The Hill (TLoTH) and moved to the little bubble of a town adjoining it. I’d like to return to my blog, hopefully once a week, to document the differences and to keep my friends up to date on my life’s goings on. I’ve been in this new state for a week and so far I’ve found some pretty weird things. Warning: I’m about to show my California self.

Car Idling

Seriously? People still do this? I guess it’s hot as balls while waiting for your grandmother to send mail at the post office but why don’t you just go INSIDE with her where it’s air-conditioned. You’re sitting in the passenger seat. You’re not going anywhere.

Streets not labeled

You don’t want me to know where the post office is. Why should it be easy to find a public service building? It’s not like I need to file an extension on my taxes or ship my entire worldly possessions.

Plastic bags

Who does this anymore? Not only do the stores only seem to have plastic bags, they do that thing where they double bag them. Pieces of shit fall apart anyway. Good thing I imported all of my Good Californian Reusable Bags. Oh wait….they’re still in the mail. In the post office can’t seem to be able to locate.

On site laundry

BEST. There is super super cheap laundry on site. I am in love with this fact. I no longer have to trek my 40 lb of laundry every two weeks to the questionable-at-times laundromat next to the 711 five blocks away.  Brb…gotta go put stuff in the dryer. ::returns:: 25¢ for 12 minutes. Insanity pants!

The word Albuquerque is too damn long!

I’m not going to be bothered to learn a word that has more letters than the days I’ve visited it. That’s what airport abbreviations and autocorrect are for. Damnit ABQ.

Gender norm enforcements

This is probably the thing I’m having the hardest time adjusting to. First off, I’m the scientist. There seems to be a pretty obvious age-related gap in the sexist reactions to this fact. The perspective property managers all assumed PartnerPenguin had gotten a job at TLoTH because he was talking to them while I quietly wrote notes and decided which apartment I wanted to pay my paycheck on. Contrastingly (and thankfully) all of the peer-aged people we’ve met have waited a beat when we said we moved here and then let me say “for my new job.”

There are also many things I had forgotten existed after living in California so long. The only options for someone you live with are “boyfriend” or “husband” and if you say anything else, you get looked at funny. Some men I’ve met here act as though their wives are a necessary, but cumbersome commodity. Likewise, women seem to disregard men, especially their husbands, as real people with whom they should communicate. This is a preliminary observation and by no means an absolute judgment. Just very disturbing to me.

Un-ironic bandana usage

It’s windy here. The wind has particles in it. Sometimes microdermabrasion is unwelcome. Still didn’t expect people to honestly wear bandanas on their faces. One more way I can now be a Western Bandit!

Unpredictable skies

It’s clear and sunny outside; let me wear only one sweater! WRONG. It’s windy and freezing. 100% of the time. And when it’s not windy and it looks like it should be warm, the sky is lying.

No recycling

Barbarism. No town/county-wide recycling means if you actually do want to recycle, you have to make a trip to the dump. Ain’t nobody got time for that shit. But I still made a recycling area just in case I change my mind.

Judgmental cross walks

Want to know one sure way to discourage people from walking instead of driving? Make your cross walks extremely judgmental. Whenever I push that little button, I seriously doubt all of my decisions to walk instead of drive anywhere. But there aren’t any side streets and drivers don’t seem to care about pedestrians so J-walking isn’t an option.

Library!!

The best thing about this town is its library. Seriously. PartnerPenguin was at a loss why co-working spaces always fail here. Then he went to the library. The library here is what libraries nation-wide should aspire to be. It is clean, friendly, has big windows with great views and a huge science fiction section. It’s three stories tall and one entire floor devoted to children and teen literature. There is a gallery on the top floor and there is art you can check out for 4 weeks at a time so your new house isn’t so dreary. There are abundant topo maps. There are meeting rooms you can rent out. I got my library card on my first visit.

One thing that I think is super cool about the library is that it’s built in conjunction with the old folks home. There is a good section of large print and audiobooks. I think as people get older, it is so American to exclude them from community and make them feel isolated. I really appreciate that this community has decided to make its public service buildings easily accessible and approachable.

GMO crows

There must be something in the water. Or the air. Or both. I shit you not, these fuckers have a wingspan of 4 ft across. It’s a little Hitchcock-y and more than a little disconcerting.­­

Thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll become more of a regular poster again!

*As defined by someone who made <$4,000 one year recently.

Passover Meditation

This year, I have really struggled with Passover as a holiday. It snuck up on me and I didn't even realize I had scheduled an unschedulable meeting on the first night's Seder.

Passover (Pesach) was never my favorite holiday. Most of my memories from this time in my childhood were either of being bored as adults talked, hunger pangs or tummy aches. Simultaneously, there were also memories of my mother orchestrating my elementary school's seder for 500 or so people and the ensuing trips to Sam's Club. But that's somewhat unrelated.

Despite this, Pesach has been one of the few Jewish holidays to elicit a feeling which I rarely experience: homesickness. I panic if I realize I do not have a seder to go to. I feel especially guilty I do not keep kosher. I spent 8 days being confused and judging myself.

This year, I have come to some conclusions. I realized that many of the reasons I hated Passover so passionately as a child was that I am allergic to eggs and almonds. These two ingredients I can tolerate in small doses (eg. in cookies!!) but that's sometimes pushing it. Why would it matter? Because you can't eat wheat on Passover, that's why. Except matzah. All of the wheat substitutes are egg based. There is ceremonial consumption of boiled eggs several times throughout the seder. Ashkinazi Jews often have kugel upon kugel, all of which have a thick egg base. When I wasn't starving, I was having allergic reactions. And I was just told it was normal, maybe I just didn't like the food during this holiday.

It made me examine some other instances where I was told that something I felt or thought was irrelevant because I was a child/teen.

When I was 12 or so, I had a late night IM confidence to a dear friend (or so I thought) about a person in power whom we both knew. I told my friend that I felt this instructor was untrustworthy, and that I felt there was something wrong about the whole situation. The result of this internet conversation was an intervention with the instructor, my parents, the friend's parents and the friend. I was told never to say such nasty things and what was I thinking?

Within a year, this particular instructor was arrested and on trial for sexual harassment of several underage women. (Interestingly, he pleaded gay and said he would never go after women at all. He was convicted as charged, I do believe.) Thankfully I was not involved in the trial or the harassment, though I was interrogated by the police.

When I was 15 I had a teacher who would habitually shame me in front of the class because I had a vocabulary larger than a pea and wasn't afraid of pointing out when his logic or grammar was flawed. Convincing myself to do homework for his class when I knew he would neither read nor care what was written was...a Herculean feat. Many adults in my life told me "these kind of people just exist" and there was nothing unusual about my situation.

Then two days ago this article gets published about how this teacher lied in three different (and completely illogical) ways and is potentially being investigated by the state. While still receiving his salary of $120,000 on "paid leave" until his situation is sorted out.

I guess these two anecdotes were brought to mind thinking about exodus from Egypt as a fleeing from a "narrow place". While some teenagers do lie and misunderstand their situations, why does society handle those who perceive EXACTLY what's going on with such ridicule? Why do adults continue to force teenagers to stay in that narrow place. That place of uncertainty and shame. How do we ever flee this place if we're never suggested tools or have anyone smart/wise to follow?

Anyway, here's a picture of me giving no fucks about how I looked when I was 4. Maybe I'll try to blog more often soon.