My First Job

X years ago in October, i got my first job after college.  Well, to the extent that short-term contract work can be considered a job.  That also does not include my years 12-16 mowing lawns for a community area a few times a month.  This after college job, at least i didn't have to save a 50lb lawnmower from going into a lake after slipping on a sloped hill.

When you first get out of college, you think a job will be a lot different than it turns out to be.  My temporary job (was a 6-month contract that lasted 3 months).  i was basically a cost accountant at Boeing (not for Boeing).  So, you think that would be debits/credits/some type of ledger?  Wrong, it was data entry (a sole sucking activity).  i was hoping to do more analysis type things.

The first day i was there, they hadn't set up my access yet.  So, the people i was working with told me to help them with filing.  While doing so, i saw the labor agreement with the staffing agency and Boeing.  i stupidly agreed to $13/hour with the staffing agency.  The staffing agency was getting $35/hour.

i was dealing mostly with "loaned labor" - which is using hours from another department or outside staffing agencies.  The ICATs (Intra Company Accounting Transfers) started with 5s or 9s.  There were at least two systems - one was a dinosaur DOS system.  The ICATs always confused me. How could you have residual loaned labor costs years after the ICAT was supposedly closed?  i learned quickly, it is better to ignore that type of thinking.

Maybe i was a little ahead of my time.  i get in there and open 3 or four windows simultaneously on the desktop and size them to fit the screen.  This was before the Snap feature was common.  Some of the older guard wouldn't have thought of doing that.

Going from college's 15-21 hours of classes a week (i took 21 credits my last quarter) to a 40-hour work week is not easy.  i don't know how the normal people do it.  Then, you throw in at least 10 hours a week for commute and it gets worse.  Though, if i was even remotely successful, it would be more like a 60-hour week. 

i should have been better at data entry, but there were some negative factors weighing me down.  

Chief among them was the transportation.  i didn't drive (still don't), so i had to rely on public transportation.  Living on a B-route in a small town does not make it easy to get to a job in another city (over 40 miles away).  i relied on my mother to drop me off at a transit center.  My commute was at least 2 hours a day.  There was a very limited window to hit to make it slightly faster (though i rarely did).  They frequently wanted me to do overtime but due to transportation issues i never could.

i have kind of a knack for going the wrong way my first attempt to get somewhere.  My first day on the job i was a little late because i went the wrong way on a bus route and had to wait for it to turn around.  After getting off the shift, i couldn't find my way to the bus stop and ended up walking in Seattle after dark.  i think i finally got home after 9PM.  The last day i worked, it was Xmas eve and the traffic was truly terrible.

Boeing would hate to hear this, but the whole 3 months i was there, i never took a lunch break.  If i would have, there was a real possibility i would miss the last bus "home".  i didn't take many breaks either.

Related was a lack of sleep.  i was coming off a few stressful events - months earlier, my college girlfriend (who i though was the "one") broke up with me and i kind of lost my will to live.  My mother sold the only home i had ever known (college doesn't count as a home).  The job started 1 or 2 days after the move.  i was sleeping on an air mattress on the living room floor.  Then, i would get up at 4:30 and take a shower to be out the door by 5 AM.  There were days where i was so tired i forgot to wear my glasses and didn't notice until i was almost at work.

i wore a tie to work the first day, and the coworker lightly kidded me.  So, on my last day at work i wore a suit and tie.

Now, why data entry was a bad fit for me.  First, it is kind of boring/mindless.  Secondly, in school i inadvertently optimized my brain to search/extrapolate and provide quick relationship answers based on keywords.  My verbal abilities are stronger than computational.  It is probably why i was one of the faster multiple choice test takers out there.  Data entry doesn't exactly work that way, especially with alphanumeric data.  When you anticipate data, you tend to make more mistakes.  Sometimes, no matter how many times you see the data, the mind sees what it thinks/expects to see.  When you anticipate data and rarely get more than 4 hours of sleep a night, it gets worse.