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amnesiackMy body is finally starting to adjust to my new sleep and activity schedule. Today has been the first day this week that I've wanted to actually do anything other than just eat and sleep when I got home. I've been really good about getting in bed as close to 10:00 as possible, not drinking caffeine after 5pm, and balancing my meals through the day. It's amazing how something that seems so simple, like starting a new full-time job, has impacted multiple aspects of my lifestyle in such a short time-span. Whether or not some of those things will revert to their former selves as the job becomes a norm remains to be seen.
As for the job itself, it's going well. This week has been all training for seven hours a day (plus a 1 hour lunch break) and then reading from a training manual at night (which thankfully we get payed for by getting to add 5 extra hours to our time sheets for the week). My normal schedule will be Tuesday through Saturday 9-5:30; working Saturdays isn't something that's exactly making me jump for joy, but only because it means there will probably be activities going on Friday nights and Saturdays in which I will not be able to participate. As far as actual functionality, I like having Mondays off simply because my Sundays are always so busy, and I look forward to having the time to recover from them before returning to work. I'm happy about getting the 9-5:30 as well, because it means I can remain on the same bio-rhythm that I'm developing now; the other possibility was 6am-2:30pm, which might have been nice in it's own way (not having to deal with traffic on my commute, free afternoons, etc.) but I think that I'm slightly happier with the setup I got than I would have been with that one.
The first few days of the training were a little rough, not because of anything bad at the company or anyone there (in fact, the trainers and supervisors couldn't have been more awesome than they have been), but simply because of the way I am. As some of you may or may not be aware, I have some issues surrounding anxiety and stress-management when it comes to dealing with new situations, especially important new situations like work.
Basically, it amounts to fighting nausea from the moment I wake in the morning until about 30-45 minutes after I leave work. My first activity upon getting out of bed is to vomit about a cup of mixed bile and mucus. Sometimes this happens again sometime between that point and when I go out the door to my car. Occasionally, it's also followed by an additional bout of the same (though of a much smaller production volume, thankfully) into a cup in my car during the drive to work or once I pull into the parking lot at work. From this point on, it actually becomes worse because I'm never able to relax for the rest of the day. I don't have the freedom to actually get sick when I feel like I should, so I spend 90% of the day suppressing my gag reflex. It's a very debilitating and discouraging feeling. The problem is that none of the normal stress or anxiety management activities that I'm aware of do anything to reduce it. I've been getting great encouragement and feedback from my trainers and lots of compliments on how quickly and well I'm picking up the work process, and my confidence has grown each day. But my body seems to be on a total disconnect from my mental state; it doesn't matter how good I'm feeling about my situation on a conscious level; my unconscious level is still trying to make me spew.
Fortunately, it was greatly reduced today, and I'm feeling a lot better overall. Hopefully it will be further reduced tomorrow (last day of training) and completely gone a day or two after I've gotten into actually doing my job. That's my normal cycle, at least. Still, even with all that, I'm getting a pretty nice sense of satisfaction from putting in a full day of work and knowing that because of it I'll no longer be living from paycheck to paycheck (or in the case of the last couple of months, living on a small, rapidly-diminishing savings and a credit card) in the coming weeks.
So, that's where I am. Cheers.
As for the job itself, it's going well. This week has been all training for seven hours a day (plus a 1 hour lunch break) and then reading from a training manual at night (which thankfully we get payed for by getting to add 5 extra hours to our time sheets for the week). My normal schedule will be Tuesday through Saturday 9-5:30; working Saturdays isn't something that's exactly making me jump for joy, but only because it means there will probably be activities going on Friday nights and Saturdays in which I will not be able to participate. As far as actual functionality, I like having Mondays off simply because my Sundays are always so busy, and I look forward to having the time to recover from them before returning to work. I'm happy about getting the 9-5:30 as well, because it means I can remain on the same bio-rhythm that I'm developing now; the other possibility was 6am-2:30pm, which might have been nice in it's own way (not having to deal with traffic on my commute, free afternoons, etc.) but I think that I'm slightly happier with the setup I got than I would have been with that one.
The first few days of the training were a little rough, not because of anything bad at the company or anyone there (in fact, the trainers and supervisors couldn't have been more awesome than they have been), but simply because of the way I am. As some of you may or may not be aware, I have some issues surrounding anxiety and stress-management when it comes to dealing with new situations, especially important new situations like work.
Basically, it amounts to fighting nausea from the moment I wake in the morning until about 30-45 minutes after I leave work. My first activity upon getting out of bed is to vomit about a cup of mixed bile and mucus. Sometimes this happens again sometime between that point and when I go out the door to my car. Occasionally, it's also followed by an additional bout of the same (though of a much smaller production volume, thankfully) into a cup in my car during the drive to work or once I pull into the parking lot at work. From this point on, it actually becomes worse because I'm never able to relax for the rest of the day. I don't have the freedom to actually get sick when I feel like I should, so I spend 90% of the day suppressing my gag reflex. It's a very debilitating and discouraging feeling. The problem is that none of the normal stress or anxiety management activities that I'm aware of do anything to reduce it. I've been getting great encouragement and feedback from my trainers and lots of compliments on how quickly and well I'm picking up the work process, and my confidence has grown each day. But my body seems to be on a total disconnect from my mental state; it doesn't matter how good I'm feeling about my situation on a conscious level; my unconscious level is still trying to make me spew.
Fortunately, it was greatly reduced today, and I'm feeling a lot better overall. Hopefully it will be further reduced tomorrow (last day of training) and completely gone a day or two after I've gotten into actually doing my job. That's my normal cycle, at least. Still, even with all that, I'm getting a pretty nice sense of satisfaction from putting in a full day of work and knowing that because of it I'll no longer be living from paycheck to paycheck (or in the case of the last couple of months, living on a small, rapidly-diminishing savings and a credit card) in the coming weeks.
So, that's where I am. Cheers.
