Monday, March 8, 2010
My new job!
It's been a little over a month since I started my new job and I'm loving it. I work full-time now as an administrative assistant at the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital in the Rape Treatment Center. I have health benefits, job security, and the satisfaction of doing something really good for people now.
I think the biggest adjustments has been getting used to waking up at 6:30 in the morning. Though I'm completely used to it now, it's hard to not be able to hang out with friends that have different schedules.. like one of my friends goes to work at noon and gets home at 9PM, so I can't even hang out with him anymore because there's one hour of overlap when we are awake and not working (there goes my Jeopardy friend!). The other big adjustment is working in an environment that is basically all female (there's one male that works there, but he only comes in on weekends so I've never seen him). I have a hard time chatting with and interacting with women. Women tend to avoid open conflict by acting like everything's okay, so since I'm new and hardly know people, I can't tell sometimes if my mistakes are pissing people off or if they are genuinely giving me the benefit of the doubt (though it's almost always the latter, people are so kind where I work!). And there are a lot of things that are strange to me since the last office environment I worked in was in Japan. I mean at 5PM on a Monday, it's like a ghost town here. People in Japan stay at least a half hour after the workday ends and then some stay one to two hours later. I'm definitely not complaining! There are so many other little things that make me think, "Wow! I love working in America." Like how everyone is really encouraging about my job performance so far (I am always very hard on myself) and how good the work-life balance is. People notice if you haven't taken a break yet and will tell you that you really should be taking the full fifteen minutes each time, and that you should walk around and get away from work at lunch! I mean this kind of stuff is unheard of in Asia. I'm really looking forward to working here!
Here's the view about two blocks away from work, still in Santa Monica, just after the rain:
(some of my coworkers take the short walk to the beach on their lunch breaks!)
I think the biggest adjustments has been getting used to waking up at 6:30 in the morning. Though I'm completely used to it now, it's hard to not be able to hang out with friends that have different schedules.. like one of my friends goes to work at noon and gets home at 9PM, so I can't even hang out with him anymore because there's one hour of overlap when we are awake and not working (there goes my Jeopardy friend!). The other big adjustment is working in an environment that is basically all female (there's one male that works there, but he only comes in on weekends so I've never seen him). I have a hard time chatting with and interacting with women. Women tend to avoid open conflict by acting like everything's okay, so since I'm new and hardly know people, I can't tell sometimes if my mistakes are pissing people off or if they are genuinely giving me the benefit of the doubt (though it's almost always the latter, people are so kind where I work!). And there are a lot of things that are strange to me since the last office environment I worked in was in Japan. I mean at 5PM on a Monday, it's like a ghost town here. People in Japan stay at least a half hour after the workday ends and then some stay one to two hours later. I'm definitely not complaining! There are so many other little things that make me think, "Wow! I love working in America." Like how everyone is really encouraging about my job performance so far (I am always very hard on myself) and how good the work-life balance is. People notice if you haven't taken a break yet and will tell you that you really should be taking the full fifteen minutes each time, and that you should walk around and get away from work at lunch! I mean this kind of stuff is unheard of in Asia. I'm really looking forward to working here!
Here's the view about two blocks away from work, still in Santa Monica, just after the rain:
(some of my coworkers take the short walk to the beach on their lunch breaks!)
Labels: work
¶ 8:29 PM
