Some of you may know this, some of you don't, but last week I started a new job as a "ride along" for Lowe's Home Improvement. Actually, it's a fairly decent job - it pays nearly $12 an hour, anywhere from 30 to 50 hours a week (right now, it's in the 40 range because we're short staffed; yes, there's time and a half), and I help unload appliances at between 5 and 8 stops per day. Physically, it's slightly demanding, but really, it's pretty easy and I'm kind of digging it. About the only negative thing so far is that a couple times a week I've got to get up at 5:00 am, which I am not a big fan of. That's just because I'm not a morning person at all and I'd rather go to bed at midnight or 1:00 am and get up between 8:00 am and 9:30 am. Just my personal preference, but that's me.

Still, it's not too shabby. I'm going back to BHC next spring and finishing out my Associate's there, in which case, I won't be available to work the early morning shift, but my boss has already said he could work around it, so no worries there. My department is actually fairly cool - we do our job and try to have as little politics and bureaucracy involved as possible. This is a refreshing change after the Putnam. I hear tell that politics plays a large role in other portions of the store, but as long as there's little impact on my job, I'm okay with it. It's not like I'm going to be there long term anyway. Since the beginning of May, I've gotten some stuff taken care of and resolved some things that needed to be resolved. I'm getting much closer to being my old self again and am trying to get all my ducks in a row. Believe it or not, I'm working off of a plan now. It's a tentative five-year plan, with just enough wiggle room to call some of the shots on the fly. But it's at least a direction, something which I honestly haven't really had since the appendectomy threw my life out of whack three years ago.

Anyway, it's a job I can live with - not the job I want, but you can't always get what you want. Gotta work towards that. It's a necessary evil at this point and I'm okay with it for the time being. At least it beats Hy-Vee and DHL. I hated those places. Hy-Vee because of the mindless repetition of running a cash register. I have a really hard time turning myself into that kind of zombie and the one day of cash register training I had to do at Lowe's drove me crazy. I'm so glad I don't have to do that on a regular basis. It's better than DHL because...well, apart from Larry and a couple others, there were a lot of douches working there looking to stab you in the back any chance they got. Sorry, but I'm kind of big on the whole team concept and don't do well when I've got to be watching out for my back nonstop. I'm just not that vicious or angry. I want to do my job while I'm there and not think about it when I'm not. And that place gave me horrible anxiety attacks. Not good since I had just been diagnosed with GAD at the time.

But Lowe's will do for now. I can't wait until I've got a couple more weeks under my belt and it's become old hat. I hate the first month at a job when it's still new and you're still trying to adjust it into your lifestyle. Once that's done and it's just the thing I do for eight hours a day, we'll be golden.