Anew

I started a new job yesterday. For two days now (and continuing all week, it seems) I've been inundated with new faces and names, new hallways and offices, new coffee machines, information upon information, training upon training, computer trickery I was ignorant of, and a comfy new desk chair. It's an office job, kind of a first for me. I'm the first settler in a brand new cubicle pod--I haven't yet amassed the push pin markings of my territory. Everything's new, the worst being me. All the dumb questions. But it will pass.

The first thing I saw as I was guided to my new desk, my new domain, was a reference book for services catering to the elderly. I opened the book randomly to a side-bar info block titled, "Incontinence Issues." As if I need another reminder that I'm hardly getting younger, let alone young. The standard office clock hanging (and is there anything else a clock can do but hang?) on the wall is one of those where the second hand jerks from second to second instead of sweeping time away. I find the jerking clocks a bit sadistic (let alone a bit false), but I'll adjust. Two training seminars concerning computer things, and of course, two training seminars delayed a bit by computer issues. Some things never change.

So it's a time of discovery for me. A new commuting path to get used to--the pot holes to avoid, the traffic enforcement cameras to kowtow to, the lanes to jockey, the best convenient stores along the way to equip my day. All the new people--an odd feeling I've experienced several times now, where you're just getting to know people and wondering what they're like, what quirks will reveal themselves, who will end up being your favorite work buddy, while at the same time wondering what they all think of you and missing already your former co-workers. Getting to know the view outside the windows. Getting to know the new toilet(s). And, for a couple weeks, fantasizing about the new number that will adorn the paycheck, the number that in time you'll know by heart and which in time won't seem enough. Ah, newness. Work, a four-letter word I still like.