I finished my first week of 8-5 work. It was long, boring, and so wonderful to do something different. My temp position is in the Legal department of Vodafone. They hired me through a legal staffing agency to help index and organize about 250 boxes of files. I spent all week listing every item in every box.
In order to break up the monotony, I came up with little games to play as I indexed box after box. Keep in mind that I occupied an entire suite of offices by myself this week. One important detail is that while I sat at the front desk facing the main entrance, there is also a back entrance that is down a hallway and several rooms away. On Monday I was pretty content just to do my job and sit quietly just listing away. I took a nice long lunch break, walked down the 16th Street Mall in Denver, stopped at Starbucks for my daily eggnog latte (I love the holidays), and enjoyed being part of the adult working world. I engaged in conversations with homeless people, local vendors, and the Starbucks barista just to get some human interaction. After lunch I returned to the silence of my office suite to continue with my indexing. By Tuesday I was smart enough to bring my Ipod. I listened to podcasts of NPR, LSAT Logic in Everyday Life, and Coffee Break Spanish - unabashedly thinking out loud and practicing my Spanish in my best Scottish accent (the instructor for Coffee Break Spanish is Scottish, so all his Spanish has this interesting and charming brogue). I practiced my karaoke skills to my favorite songs and took advantage of the fact that I was alone in my own little world, with hundreds of file boxes. On Wednesday I was beginning to get a little crazy and became more creative with my self-entertainment methods. I decided that since I was surrounded by boxes I should build a fort. I began placing each box strategically after I indexed it. Before long I had a nice little structure. I still had more boxes though and I placed them in a sort of maze on the floor. I was putting my artistic skills to good use, sitting in my fort to index and walking through my maze, when suddenly I hear laughter. My stomach leapt. I wasn't alone after all.
Blushing deeply, I peeked out from inside my cave of boxes to see an unfamiliar man grinning at me. "Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm the temp for the next couple weeks." I crawled out, stood up and shook hands.
"Yes, hi, I'm just checking out the suite. We're thinking of moving into this space."
"Oh, well, it's only being used temporarily for this project."
"I see, and do you come with the space?"
"No, no, I'm just here with Vodafone to index these boxes."
"Well it looks like you've made yourself at home," he grinned, motioning toward my fort. "I'm just going to take a look around. I'll be out of your way in a minute."
"Okay, yeah, take your time, I'm just gonna get back to, uh, these boxes." I smiled and returned to my desk, thoroughly embarrassed. I put my headphones back on, and quietly indexed boxes until the man left through the front entrance. "Thanks!" he waved, "have fun."
"Yeah, thanks, have a nice day," I replied and smiled.
It took all of about three minutes after he left and I finished my current box before I resumed constructing my fort, I was in the process of adding a guest wing.
After lunch on Wednesday I had pretty much taken up as much reasonable space as possible with my construction projects and invented a new game. Many of the boxes have personnel files, each labeled with a last and first name. In one of the "G" boxes the names were pretty interesting so I started pronouncing them out loud in what I imagined was the language of origin. Russian sounding names became my favorite.
The next couple days continued like this, me, alone in the suite, uninterrupted in my Scottish-Spanish lessons, foreign name game, singing out loud, and artistically arranging box after box.
By 4pm today I completed all the boxes. It brought a nice feeling of accomplishment. On Monday I'm taking my lists and inputting them all into an electronic database. I'll be in the main office, at a desk surrounded by other people. While I'm looking forward to having more human contact, I hope I don't forget where I am and start singing or speaking Scottish-Spanish out loud.
In order to break up the monotony, I came up with little games to play as I indexed box after box. Keep in mind that I occupied an entire suite of offices by myself this week. One important detail is that while I sat at the front desk facing the main entrance, there is also a back entrance that is down a hallway and several rooms away. On Monday I was pretty content just to do my job and sit quietly just listing away. I took a nice long lunch break, walked down the 16th Street Mall in Denver, stopped at Starbucks for my daily eggnog latte (I love the holidays), and enjoyed being part of the adult working world. I engaged in conversations with homeless people, local vendors, and the Starbucks barista just to get some human interaction. After lunch I returned to the silence of my office suite to continue with my indexing. By Tuesday I was smart enough to bring my Ipod. I listened to podcasts of NPR, LSAT Logic in Everyday Life, and Coffee Break Spanish - unabashedly thinking out loud and practicing my Spanish in my best Scottish accent (the instructor for Coffee Break Spanish is Scottish, so all his Spanish has this interesting and charming brogue). I practiced my karaoke skills to my favorite songs and took advantage of the fact that I was alone in my own little world, with hundreds of file boxes. On Wednesday I was beginning to get a little crazy and became more creative with my self-entertainment methods. I decided that since I was surrounded by boxes I should build a fort. I began placing each box strategically after I indexed it. Before long I had a nice little structure. I still had more boxes though and I placed them in a sort of maze on the floor. I was putting my artistic skills to good use, sitting in my fort to index and walking through my maze, when suddenly I hear laughter. My stomach leapt. I wasn't alone after all.
Blushing deeply, I peeked out from inside my cave of boxes to see an unfamiliar man grinning at me. "Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm the temp for the next couple weeks." I crawled out, stood up and shook hands.
"Yes, hi, I'm just checking out the suite. We're thinking of moving into this space."
"Oh, well, it's only being used temporarily for this project."
"I see, and do you come with the space?"
"No, no, I'm just here with Vodafone to index these boxes."
"Well it looks like you've made yourself at home," he grinned, motioning toward my fort. "I'm just going to take a look around. I'll be out of your way in a minute."
"Okay, yeah, take your time, I'm just gonna get back to, uh, these boxes." I smiled and returned to my desk, thoroughly embarrassed. I put my headphones back on, and quietly indexed boxes until the man left through the front entrance. "Thanks!" he waved, "have fun."
"Yeah, thanks, have a nice day," I replied and smiled.
It took all of about three minutes after he left and I finished my current box before I resumed constructing my fort, I was in the process of adding a guest wing.
After lunch on Wednesday I had pretty much taken up as much reasonable space as possible with my construction projects and invented a new game. Many of the boxes have personnel files, each labeled with a last and first name. In one of the "G" boxes the names were pretty interesting so I started pronouncing them out loud in what I imagined was the language of origin. Russian sounding names became my favorite.
The next couple days continued like this, me, alone in the suite, uninterrupted in my Scottish-Spanish lessons, foreign name game, singing out loud, and artistically arranging box after box.
By 4pm today I completed all the boxes. It brought a nice feeling of accomplishment. On Monday I'm taking my lists and inputting them all into an electronic database. I'll be in the main office, at a desk surrounded by other people. While I'm looking forward to having more human contact, I hope I don't forget where I am and start singing or speaking Scottish-Spanish out loud.
1 comment:
I love this picture. It should be your MySpace pic.
Kudos to your box-filing artistry.
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