Can't say that I'll miss it. It's never a good time when you spend eight hours during the day not listening to the radio. However, and for starters, I am so busy doing this position that I don't, like, miss miss it. When I started training for this job I thought that once I got up to speed, I could just pop in my headphones and listen to my heart's content. No, I can't. There are too many curveballs that will pop up. You have to drop everything and answer this e-mail, a question to which many times I don't have the foggiest idea as to even start tackling. You can't relax, unfortunately. The only upside to that: I am so busy that eight hours, as painful as it is not having the white noise of radio, does fly by. You're so busy buried in stuff that you're apt to look up and suddenly there are, like, two hours left in your day.
With all that said, I have to admit that The Fourth Department is getting easier. I have used this analogy before, I'm sure, here on WAF, even though I'm not sure if I was talking about this or something else entirely. I hear that in the NFL, Quarterbacks that "get it" and finally reach a level of proficiency, if not success, in the league realize that they "get it" when the Game starts to "slow down" for them. At some point, the issues literally attacking them from all sides don't overwhelm their senses. Instead, they are able to anticipate those issues, avoid them (and when I say "issues" I more often that not mean the opposing defense), and then make a play that advances the ball for their team.
I feel that way now in The Fourth Department. The way that I realized the work there "slowed down" for me was when, on Tuesday, I realized that I could actually leave at the time I was supposed to leave. Before I would average between 20 and 80 minutes staying late. But I got all my work done, including the end-of-day stuff to make sure I've crossed my t's and dotted my i's, and left around 5:30. To prove to myself it was no fluke, it happened again Wednesday. I got done even earlier Thursday, and I left a couple minutes early on Thursday in case something big enough happened that I could leave a little late yesterday and still land around 40 hours (overtime has not been approved for this week because the amount of work has slowed to a regular amount). But that really wasn't needed yesterday. I had to wipe down my work area because it was my last day, but I got out of there in time.
Now, I will go back to the workload; we have gotten to the point of the year where fewer businesses need tests, and so the ebbing of work down the assembly line eventually reaches me. I swear that when I was frazzled when I worked The Fourth Department the first time or times, it was because there was so much stuff. I don't have that crushing amount of work now. However, I think it's also fair to say that I "get it" now. For example, there are a series of forms in which I need to identify the company in order to send an e-mail. I would have, say, a dozen of these and I would be so discouraged because I wouldn't know where to begin. I have an idea now, and I either have developed enough instincts whereby I know I should look up stuff here or there, or I am confident enough to know that trying this e-mail address is the best I can do. There is no more slaving over one form for half an hour, and there is less anxiety when it comes to any of the tasks I have to do now.
So yeah, I guess I "get it." And that's a good thing. I shouldn't get over my skis, but if I have another four-day stint in the future and I get out of work on time each day again, I would then definitely say that The Fourth Department isn't scaring me anymore. In fact, maybe then I'll, gasp, like it.
No comments:
Post a Comment