On gainful employment

Well, I promised myself I'd sit down and write another journal entry when I had the time, and I seem to have a spare half hour before I go to work, so it seems like a good time to get it into print.

Friday was the last day of training. We took some more calls, and got used to the experience. We also "graduated" and were given little certificates (that the trainer forgot to sign before handing out, so he had to go around and sign each one afterward).

That morning, I secretly passed around a thank-you card I'd got at Wal-Mart the day before so each member of the class could write a little personal note on it to Jared, the trainer. He seemed touched by the gesture, and one of my classmates also approached me afterward to thank me for thinking of it.

But he really deserved it. He had an insane amount of patience, especially for being forced to get up just as early as we all were. And really—can you imagine how tough it must have been to turn a room full of geeks (a number of whom showed all the signs of having Aspergers) into "people persons"?

( First two days of the real job )

Over the weekend, I happened to glance at the status indicators on the Google Talk box set into my Gmail account. It still had the "Laid Off" status indicator that I used in the early days after Mihlfeld laid me off. As a sort of final punctuation mark to my newly-employed status, I hit "Clear all custom statuses" and started it over with a blank slate.

On gainful employment

Well, I promised myself I'd sit down and write another journal entry when I had the time, and I seem to have a spare half hour before I go to work, so it seems like a good time to get it into print.

Friday was the last day of training. We took some more calls, and got used to the experience. We also "graduated" and were given little certificates (that the trainer forgot to sign before handing out, so he had to go around and sign each one afterward).

That morning, I secretly passed around a thank-you card I'd got at Wal-Mart the day before so each member of the class could write a little personal note on it to Jared, the trainer. He seemed touched by the gesture, and one of my classmates also approached me afterward to thank me for thinking of it.

But he really deserved it. He had an insane amount of patience, especially for being forced to get up just as early as we all were. And really—can you imagine how tough it must have been to turn a room full of geeks (a number of whom showed all the signs of having Aspergers) into "people persons"?

( First two days of the real job )

Over the weekend, I happened to glance at the status indicators on the Google Talk box set into my Gmail account. It still had the "Laid Off" status indicator that I used in the early days after Mihlfeld laid me off. As a sort of final punctuation mark to my newly-employed status, I hit "Clear all custom statuses" and started it over with a blank slate.