Shadow Boxing (Plus: Yay!)

My second day of work was a little more craptacular than the first, simply because it involved doing even more of what made yesterday so craptacular, namely “shadowing” some of the existing employees and watching them work.
Now, this is sort of standard for training, and would actually be useful if it weren’t for the fact that, having been provided with no basic explanation of exactly what the people we’re watching are doing, their actions are largely incomprehensible.
Sure, they try to explain as they’re doing it, but that’s not the same as getting an overview beforehand.
But that’s all we did today for the whole day, up until the last half hour when we were brought back into the training room to verify that the logins we had been given for some of the things we’ll need to be able to log in to were working (and to change our temporary passwords for said logins).
Still, the day ended on a bit of a high note. Before heading off to work this morning I sent an e-mail to my potential boss at the job I want to let him know where things stood with me and to ask where things stood with the job.
While I spent the whole day watching someone else use a computer, I had no access to one myself until the login thing at the end of the day, and I can’t get a signal on my cell phone there, so all day long I sat and wished I could check my mail.
Once I was finally able to do so at the end of the day, I found that I had a response to my e-mail. He said that he expects to have final approval before Wednesday of next week, and that once he does they will immediately make me an offer.
(And I will immediately accept.)
So that was cool, and gives me the hope I need to keep gritting my teeth and wading through the crappiness of my new job.
Next week we’ll be doing some actual training in the use of the tools and learning the processes and procedures – which is what we should have been doing this week – rather than just shadowing people, so that should be more tolerable.

The Best Thing Ever Department:
When I wake up in the morning I find myself feeling like Fry in the Slurm Factory on Futurama, croaking in a dry, hoarse whisper that I am, “so thirsty.”
Somewhere along the line I discovered that the greatest thing ever – at least in terms of combating that morning desiccation – is ice-cold, flat 7-Up.
It’s seriously like the nectar of the gods.

Punking Out On Christmas Department:
Last year, in an odd change of pace, I actually bought everyone on my list real, honest-to-goodness Christmas presents, rather than simply giving money.
This year? Not so much, as I mailed my mom a check yesterday with instructions on how and to whom to distribute it.
I just couldn’t come up with any gift ideas for anyone (except my nephew Jeremy, but I thought it would be weird to single him out for a real present, so he’s just getting money like everyone else) this year, so it was just easier to whip out the checkbook. There are a couple of people around here who will probably get actual gifts, though.

The Clear Vision Bubble:
After I managed to kajigger the lenses out of my eyes this morning, my vision was even clearer than it has been. It’s still not at the level that my glasses or regular contacts brought it to, but I can definitely make my way through the world with ease with my reshaped corneas.
It’s kind of like I have this bubble of clear vision around me, the range of which falls just short of what I was able to achieve with wearing corrective lenses. I’m also finding that the bubble doesn’t really shrink throughout the course of the day anymore, and I’m always able to see near objects with a heretofore unseen (no pun intended) clarity.
One of the obstacles to seeing things at a greater distance as clearly sans glasses or contacts is the that I tend to see “halos” around illuminated objects that obscure them slightly, though this is apparently normal, and seems to be lessening.
Tonight will be the first night I sleep without the lenses in, then I wear them again for three nights starting tomorrow, and then I go to the eye doctor’s to get checked out after work on Wednesday.