12/18/2011
This is going to be epically long. Forewarning.
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Apparently, I’ve moved up in the world at work. A bunch of us got moved into the new room they made. 8 new people started, so they had no choice but to move us actually. No seats in the actual training room. I’ve dubbed the new room, the Big Kids room. We get a cubicle. And yes, I did geek out my cubicle a little already. Added my Mulder and Scully action figures, my X-Files mug that I use for a pen holder, and a mystical magical orb ball a/k/a the cheap magic 8-ball.
Get a brand new desk (no drawers though or shelf, which I hope they fix soon), a wicked awesome keyboard, email, and all that. We’re more or less out of training, and expected to hit daily quotas that Tron assigns us. I’m not really sure what we’re going to be getting paid. I’m not too concerned. I was already asked to stay late on Thursday to do overtime for a special project. I stayed of course. It was simple work, and the money I made gives me a tank of gas.
Friday Tron asked if I, and the chick M, liked the OT. Yes, duh. Was told Monday he’d email us about it. So, I think I’m going to be doing at least 15 hours OT a week. Two hours a day, then 5 on Saturday. I’ll try that for the first week, and see if I can do more. Why 15? Because they do a “game”, where if you do at least 15 OT hours you get a gift card. More OT you do, the higher the amount. So not only do you get the OT pay, you get an extra bonus for doing it so much. Awesome-ness.
I’d like to see if I can physically do 12 hour days for the 5 days, that’s 20 hours, plus maybe another 5 on Saturday, for 25. But I need to see how my body does, my brain, and how much they tax me. I’m not going to bust my ass to have most of it gone in taxes. But I’m more or less drooling over the idea of a fat check. Even if it’s just to have a nice buffer for a month or two with the bills until my mother gets disability. Once she does, we’ll have no problems with paying out bills. Until then, it’s just my check paying everything. I don’t make nearly enough to pay everything. Almost, but not quite
Tron, he’s our head go-to boss type guy, started giving us daily quotas to hit. Friday he told me to hit 130. Told M to hit 135. I got super competitive and told myself to hit at least 135. Ended up with 155. Oh yeah, I’m fucking awesome. Curious what my error rate was, but I doubt it’s horrible. I’ve been getting at most 3 errors per batch, mostly 1 or 2. We’re allowed 1 per 20 once we’re not in training anymore. But we were overloaded with work that was due on Friday. Like a good thousand files all due that day, so we all had to do those files, even though they were below out level. Or mostly below, two people are still at that level.
On a more personal note, crush on T is getting out of hand. I assumed being in the other room would take care of it. Nope. It’s worse. Now I’m like a person stranded dying for water, and she’s my water. Every little bit I do see her is bittersweet. At one sense it nourishes my darkened soul, in another I feel a bit of me breaking. She isn’t helping either.
Minutes after my computer got set up, I get an email from her about a perfect batch. Now she always emails me about perfect batches, even when she knows I don’t need them.
Somehow she knows I like being in a corner. I don’t know how she knows but she does. I went in to hand her a perfect batch that the file supe gave me (this was before our email was set up). Conversation went like this:
I walk in, with my little smirk at the new trainees crowded around her desk. She looks up from them, our eyes meet and she flashes me a smile. I wait patiently for them to finish with my arms crossed, and the perfect batch making me feel a bit manic.
She finishes with the trainees, and says to them, “don’t make mistakes, or else…” I laugh a little under my breath, but
she can see the amusement on my face. “Jen, tell them what happens when they make a mistake.”
Some new girl pips up before I open my mouth, “we have to fix it.”
Laughing again I shake my head, looking down, then up in a specific move to shade my face with my hair from the stupid grin on my face. And it takes me a second for come up with a reply, because all I can think is, you’re so beautiful, and glowing, and oh gods why do you have to look at me like you can see my soul. “Oh no, people who make mistakes get buried in the back yard.” T laughs, and I sound so serious that the trainees look at me like I’m insane. “Nah, I’m kidding. No one gets buried in the back yard.”
They leave, back to their desks to go over their tests and to work. I walk up to her still smiling kind of stupidly.
She signs off on my perfect batch, and I look down at the stack of corrections for us. Mine is on top. It always is. Why? I know they can’t come in that way, not all the time. Does she go through them, and put me first? And then she either calls me first, or last. But I’m already here, and I mutter to her, “can I just grab my corrections since I’m already here?”
She pulls the corrections to her, “sure. Just some instrument number typos.” I make a face, and she knows I have typos. Hate the stupid little mistakes that I make. “Does N sit next to you?”
I shake my head, “no, M does. And then the wall. They put me in a corner.” She looks up at me, with those eyes that I swear know far too much about me.
“You like corners.”
Stated as fact. And it is. “Yeah, I do like corners.” And she somehow knows. Has know, because she moved me into a corner last week, and I swear she made up the new room seats as well. She knows N doesn’t sit next to me, knows I’m in a corner. Why ask me. Does she want me to know that she knows? I don’t understand.
I take M’s corrections with my own, leave the room. I can almost feel her eyes following me as I walk away, and I can almost hear my soul tearing a little.
Later, she emails me about my MN batches. A few emails go by, about which batch she signed off on, and how should I turn it in for records, since I still have the sheet? Of course I should. I walk it over to the next room, to see her smiling at me. I drop it in DT’s inbox, and I catch T’s eye again. She raises her eyebrows, I shrug at her a bit sheepishly. Across the room she yells, “you’re a dork.” And I smile at her and shrug again.
Not the first time she’s called me a dork. I had gotten a correction back, and for the life of me I couldn’t see where they saw the lender. She was surrounded by trainees, but I needed her. I walked up to her, holding the error and giving off my ‘I’m so confused’ face. Instantly she jumped up. “I’ll go to your desk.” I sit back down, pulling up the file I don’t understand. And there she is. Leaning over me, my entire right side going blazing hot like I’m standing under a thousand suns. She’s so close she’s physically brushing against me. On my notepad turned mouse pad she writes, “help.” I look up at her questioningly. Oh gods you’re so close, so damn close, and I could just kiss you here and now. “Sperm,” she whispered.
“What? Sperm?” I whisper back. And she moves in closer, and I swear we’re only a couple inches away.
“Someone said sperm. Who says sperm? And in a training class no less?” I shrug helplessly. I don’t know. I don’t like sperm. And shouldn’t you like sperm? You’re pregnant, you obviously have some experience with it. Why are you acting like a lesbian over the word sperm? She shudders. The very word makes her sick.
“What’s the problem?”
“I can’t see how they got the lender. It’s on the short form but… I’m confused.” I bite my bottom lip. It’s not just the file that has me confused.
“Can I have your seat?” Nearly jumping, I get up, letting her have my chair.
“Sure.” Oh yes, I’m suave. Total lady killer.
In seconds she looks back up at me. Her eyes bright with laughter, and says, “it’s right there you dork.” She puts a box around the lenders name.
Blurting out, “ah shit.” I laugh at myself. And she laughs with me.
And I wonder if she knows that to me, to me that’s a term of endearment. It’s just as personal and loving as calling someone babe, or honey. She says it with the same warmth that I would, that gods you’re so adorable tone.
She scared the shit out of me too. I can always hear and feel when someone is walking behind me. Freaks me out if people do, it’s why I only ever wear headphones in one ear. So I can hear what’s going around behind me better. That day I wasn’t wearing the headphones. I didn’t want music. I was basking in the silence. Letting it wrap around me like a hug. And out of no where I hear her say my name just behind me. I jumped, visibly, and she smirked a little at me. Her, and her damn little cat feet. I should be able to hear her. But I didn’t. She managed to sneak up on me. No one sneaks up on me like that. Not in a crowded room, when I’m always on my guard. Unconsciously I knew she wasn’t a threat.
And later she wanders in, this time I managed to feel her, felt how my body instantly got warm at her very presence. She blurted out, “I love you.” And my mind died. I nearly said it back, it was on the tip of my tongue, the word I already escaping. And then she handed me a correction batch, and she turned to M and said, “And I love you.” And gave her corrections.
She’s dubbed me the official training room stat sheet runner, so I email her at the end of the day to check if they&rsq