I told Kari I’d do post about my new job. I’ve officially been at work for five days, and it’s possible I’ve never been this tired. My blog is suffering a bit. Just a note: I’ve got to do this without naming places or names (I’ve changed them below), and here’s the big disclaimer: My views don’t represent my company’s.

Basically, I’m a front desk girl. The gist of the job is connecting people to other people, who are almost never at their desk, or who are already busy with a resident, or who I don’t know because I haven’t worked there for very long. While I’m doing that, I make sure the cookies are always coming out of the oven and the popcorn is fresh and the dog (who is on meds that make her pee every 15 minutes) is getting let out, staying out of the dining room, and trying to keep her away from the residents who intimidate her.

Now take yesterday, for example. I’m dealing with all of the above when some of the phones begin to glitch. NOT the incoming phone lines. The phones that alert the caregivers that their residents need assistance. No one is really in danger. It just means that now I also have to watch a certain screen and let the caregivers know when the room lights up, indicating assistance is needed. At the same time, one of the residents who needs full-time monitoring when she goes outside, decides to walk her dog, so I go attend to that. Ten minutes later and after she’s yelled at me for not letting her past the gate, another resident who is not permitted to leave the building unattended, decides to go on a walk by herself. Thankfully a caregiver is there to help her out. Gary is in the bistro area with tears in his eyes; he’s just split up with his girlfriend. And Bob is telling me that there is a rocket going by his window. He guesses the government just has to get rid of those things now and then.

What really makes me laugh is that when I tell my 12 year old about all the things going on at work, she says, wow, that kind of sounds like toddlers. Well, it’s certainly as exhausting.