Discard color information?



Whenever anybody's been in contact with me for the last several weeks, I inevitably hear: "How's your new job?"

The short answer is that things are good. The long answer is — as life tends to be — slightly more complicated.

Coming from such a long duration of doing freelance work, followed by intermittent bursts of joblessness, I find I'm still making a mental adjustment. I think I'm beginning my fourth week of work tomorrow, but it dawned on me last week that I needn't bother keeping count of how long I've been there. It's already becoming hazy. As a freelancer, your time is punctuated by timesheets and invoicing. I'm finding that I'm comfortably slipping back into the mentality that allows a full-timer worker the opportunity to let years slip pass without much notice.

I worked my first overtime day last Tuesday. It was one of the days that combines three things I hate: (a) having a steady stream of incoming work dumped on me during the day, all of which needs to be tended to as soon as possible; (b) an apparent lack of understanding on the part of my manager as to just how much work has been dumped on me — despite being the only person who's assigning work to me; and (c) no advance warning that I was going to be "hit" with as much work as I was. As it went, I wasn't there too long after work, as I'm incredibly efficient at my job when left to my own devices (i.e., after hours). My manager also seemed to notice that — when I hadn't touched a major project yet, approaching end-of-day — she had interrupted my work flow considerably during the day, and apologized for it. Also, as luck would have it, I didn't have any plans I needed to cancel. So, all in all, it wasn't anywhere near as offputting as it could have been.

In related news, I'm going to be on a semi-monthly pay schedule, and my near-mid-month starting date meant I hadn't completed the paperwork to be on payroll for the mid-month payday. I suspect I'll have a much easier time adjusting to full-time work when I get my first paycheque.