Hard at work--NOT!

Well, I lied. I said this post would be about the RV park where I'm staying, but I think instead it'll be about my job, which is now two days along. In some ways, it already feels like an old comfortable shoe, but in other ways, the fun hasn't even begun yet.

My first day on the job was yesterday, Monday, January 8. As my brother pointed out, since I'd have to get up early, I wouldn't be able to stay up until my usual 3 a.m. I agreed, but let me tell you, it was hard to shut down my world by midnight on Sunday and try to get some sleep. Actually, I didn't get to bed until closer to 12:30, and I didn't get to sleep until after 2:30 a.m. I don't know what it is, but sometimes, when there's something exciting going to happen the next day, I just can't force my mind to slow down and turn off.

Anyway, I set the alarm for 5:30, since I had to take Charlie to the airport to catch a 7:55 a.m. plane back to New Jersey. About 5:28, he woke me up, apologizing for being so early, to tell me that the motor home was freezing, and the heater was blowing ice cold air. I mumbled something about us being out of gas, but he said no, he'd checked it when we got here and we had half a tank. However, just to accommodate me, he went outside with the flashlight and checked it--and, of course, it was empty. Mystery solved.

Problem remains: he's leaving, he's got me all nicely balanced and jacked up, and I do NOT want to have to drive this thing over to the propane station when I get home from work, fill 'er up, and then come back here and try to balance me again. I almost paid to change Charlie's flight to 1:20 p.m. so he could stay here for the morning, do the dirty work, and then take a taxi ($5) to the airport. But we decided that someone in this town had to make "house calls" for LP gas, and we started calling. We found someone and I planned to call at 8 a.m. (it was then 6:30 a.m.). Charlie went over to one of the community showers to make his ablutions (he reported that they are very nice), while I (with no hot water) chose to remain among the unwashed.

On the way out of the park, we stopped at the sentry's post (we have 24/7 security here), told them of our problem, and they said there are 3 companies that schedule trips out here, but that we needed to call Vegas Propane (and they gave us the number), because THEY were coming that very day! Huzzah!!! I called them, gave them a credit card (they told me the gas would be $3/gallon--I'd have paid TWICE that for the service), told them my lot number, and shure enough, when I got home last night, there was a bill for $63.60 in my door. LOVELY!!! And it was warm in here, to boot!

Okay, I know, I know, that wasn't about work--but it certainly was on my mind through my whole work day, so I'm sharing it. Anyway, we had time before Charlie's plane, so he treated me to breakfast at IHOP, and then I dropped him off at the airport. On the way out of the airport, you drive through a long tunnel, and while I was driving through that tunnel, my car's odometer rolled over from 89,999 to 90,000. A moment to remember! At 91,000, I need another oil change, and I'm going to have the brake fluid checked. And close to 100,000, I'm going to have the 90,000-mile checkup performed. Kurtis Weger tells me this should make my car purr for at least another 50,000 miles. Bless Kurtis!

The trip up to the office was lovely. I'm now dealing with a 23-mile commute (one-way) and my reaction to that is a happy one: Now I can listen to all my audible.com downloads, since I'll be in the car for 20 minutes each way. That's good thing, as Martha would say. I even took a bit of a shortcut on faith (and turned the 23 miles into more like 19 or 20), and found it to be lovely: a 6-lane boulevard through a lovely residential area with almost no one on the roads at that hour. And they use traffic circles in many places along that road to avoid the long lights that Vegas (and Austin) are famous for. I love traffic circles; they use them everywhere in the UK, and I really enjoyed them (when I wasn't white-knuckled, sure that the car next to us was going to turn right into us! They never did, though!).

I had to go to the main entrance to the compound (there are four buildings in that particular area, more elsewhere that are related) to get a visitor's pass. You walk in this gorgeous turquoise glass-fronted building, expecting a reception desk, etc.--and there's nothing there but a couple of double doors--both sets shut tight. It took a while for me to decide that I had to somehow get through one of them (it was marked Suite 100, which was where I was supposed to go). I finally pushed enough buttons and/or screamed loudly enough that a scratchy voice came through an intercom and told me the door was open and I could enter.

That was the hardest part of the day. They had a pass all ready for me, and within 5 minutes of the receptionist's call, a woman named Patti showed up to escort me back to Building 1, which is where I'll be living from now on--for most of the daylight hours, anyway--all of them in January, in fact! She was a tall flighty girl who kept starting sentences that I thought would be very informative and interesting--and then dropping them by the wayside and starting another one. She turns out to be my OMA (we're in the Land of Acronyms, people--that's LOA to you!): Office Management Assistant, I think it means. But I've decided that, nice as she is, I'm going to have to go to other people (who actually complete sentences) if I really want information!

Anyway, we walked in the front door of Building 1 (also lovely turquoise glass-fronted, but not a two-story front, just a one-story one), and Patti introduced me to the two people standing there: Patty and Cookie. Whoops, I thought, right here there are three people named Pat/Patti/Patty. This could get confusing. Well, hold on to your hats, people, because yesterday I met Pat (male) who delivers the computer equipment, Patricia (in the next cubicle--haven't met her, but she's coming), and Patrice, who's in the Human Resources area. Then today I met another Pat (a man, also an Intera employee--Intera is the company in Austin that I once worked for and that promoted me for this job and actually pays my salary) and another Pat (a man) who used to work at Intera Austin and whom I loved (he's about 25 now, and lives in Vegas and works for another company but on the same project), and someone told me about another Patricia.

All right, if you're counting, I think that's 8--and that's only the ones I've heard of. I'm sure there are more. Anyway, I'm taking this seriously, and I'm going to do something about it. I'm officially changing my name--to Patsy! I decided a couple of days ago that my mother, bless her heart, had named all her dolls Patsy, and when I came along, her first REAL doll, she named me Patsy, too, because she loved the name. Suddenly, now that she's gone, I've decided that I should honor her by taking that name. I mentioned it to a Human Resources person I was talking to today (NOT a Pat--this was a Jo Ann), and she thought it was a great idea. She took me around to meet a few other people, and always introduced me as Patsy--even when I forgot and called myself Pat Shepherd.

Bottom line, people: I started this blog the other day as Pat Shepherd of Austin, TX, and I have completely sloughed off that identity. I am now Patsy Shepherd of Las Vegas. Put that in your PDAs, your Rolodexes, and your cell phones. I'm not going to even turn around if I hear "Pat," but I'll pirouette when I hear "Patsy." Unless you're calling me for a meal--then you can call me Lester or Hildegarde or whatever! I'm there!

Okay, okay, back to work. Well, there isn't any. For me, anyway. I can't log on to my computer until I'm set up with passwords, etc., and there's some kind of inter-company competition going on. Seems that the prime contractor for this job (Bechtel SAIC Company is its name, BSC) switched last October 2 to Sandia National Laboratory (Lead Lab or LL is how they refer to themselves), and the transition is still going on. Sandia (LL) hasn't yet got a team of IT people here to make all the computer changes that need to happen, and BSC won't share the IT people who used to be in charge of everything here. So some of us new people are just sitting on our thumbs staring at blank computer screens.

That would be me. Yesterday, one of the editors gave me a couple of documents that had been edited, so that I could look at them and see what will be expected of me. I've more or less done that. And today some huge deadline hit the fan unexpectedly and everyone is running around (and working late tonight) over that. But I had to just sit there most of the day yesterday and all day today and listen to all the talk about what was needed, what was missing, whether or not they could actually finish the job, etc. I asked 2-3 times if I could work offline, on a paper copy of the document, but that evidently doesn't help them. They were delighted I wanted to help and very sad that I couldn't.

I wish I could have, because, judging by what I've read of the edited documents, I'm very familiar with what they're doing, the style they're using, and the things they're looking for. I will be a helpful addition to the force, I can guarantee, once I'm online. That COULD happen as early as tomorrow--or not until next week. Meanwhile, I've got literally nothing to do. And, since I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, I'm still pretty tired and I found myself nodding off in my little cubicle a couple of times. Very embarrassing! Pat, the equipment guy, picked both of those times to come up behind me and wake me up: once to deliver a foot rest, the second time to replace my old keyboard with an ergonomically correct one. My back is to the door of the cubicle, and those of you who know me well know I never hear someone coming up behind me and I JUMP!!! Well, in these cases, I woke up! I don't think he even realized it, but I've got to do something about that. I've seen several other people with these little silver convex mirrors that sit on your desk so that you can see if there's someone behind you. I've got to find out tomorrow where I can get one of those!

Okay, for those of you who need it, my work phone is 702-295-5434, and it rings right at my desk, and I can talk--at least, I can talk about stuff that I don't care if 40 other people here. As you probably know, NOTHING is private in the Land of Cubicles (LOC), so if you need to call, be sure you ask questions that I don't have to answer with things like, "Oh, you poor baby, and what did the minister say after he picked you up off the floor?"

And for now that's it as far as work goes. I am on the schedule that allows me to have every other Friday off, so I'll be working Friday this week and I'll have next Friday (the 19th) off--unless we're swamped. They ask that you use your discretion: if there's work that needs to get out, then you come in and do it; and, of course, since I'm going to get overtime pay, I'll happily do that. I'd do it anyway, but it is nice to be paid for it.

Next Monday I spend 8 hours in what they call GET, General Education and Training, which everyone goes through. I'll learn about the project and about all the safety concerns (safety is major here), and other general stuff. Other than that, I'm just hanging in there until I get online. And then I expect I'll have no trouble staying busy and awake!

More later. I think next it will be about the RV park. Wish I were here in the daylight to take some pictures. I'll work on that. And I have to tell you about our forays into the City of Light. It's very true, you know, what they say: The money you bring to Vegas STAYS in Vegas. But that is a story for another day. . . .