So, here is how a typical day at work goes for me:
1. Walk into the break room (backdoor) and get my breakfast from the fridge. It's been a fruit parfait from McDonald's every. single day. and I love it. I usually scoop the top inch of yogurt out to make room for the granola and to cut a few calories. Heh.
2. Eat it at my desk while looking over the "To Do" pile that Boss usually leaves for me on my chair.
3. Start making copies of everything in said "To Do" list while being interrupted by the phone numerous times.
4. Make envelopes (printing addresses on them) and then add postage (thank god for the postage machine!).
5. Check my copy of Boss's Planner to see what he has going on for the day and decide what files to pull and start working on. I am smart and photo copy his calendar every few days so I can have it at my desk.
6. Get interrupted by various clients coming in, and more phone calls.
7. Check voice mail.
8. See Kelly. Force self to smile. Listen to Kelly talk about Kelly. Act interested/concerned/sympathetic.
9. Boss gets back from court. Always smiles and makes a joke. Then grumbles about the messages I have taken as he walks back to his office.
10. Go to lunch, usually with my father. Hey! Free food!
11. Greet the Runner, and the FedEx guy, followed by the mail man.
12. Make small talk with old guy who works there and comes out to get candy from the candy bowl at least 8 times a day.
13. Sneak into Boss's office while he's not in there to see what changes/additions he has made in his calendar. *Always* get caught in the act and have to act guilty for being in there because he likes that, lol.
14. Check clock. Oh god, it's only 2:45.....
15. Get really busy again when everyone starts calling at once. This always happens when Boss starts returning calls all at once, leaving messages for those who don't answer but who call back within minutes of *his* call. They always sound suspicious when I tell them he's on the phone and insist that he *JUST* called. Yeah, but you didn't answer so he moved on to the next message...
16. Notice that it's all of a sudden 4:25 and Kelly is leaving (because hello, she's off at 4:30). How does she leave early every freaking day? I don't get it.
17. Make note to self that I will leave on time today (right at 5:30) and figure out what I need to finish up.
18. Boss comes out with last minute things to do, usually preparing documents to go with the runner to courthouse. This involves copies, typing up a Proof of Service and mailing the PoS to whoever is being served. And the phone keeps ringing.
19. Race against clock to finish up the work because I'll be damned if I stay late today...
20. Notice that it's 5:35 *sigh* Make coffee for next day, straighten desk, make sure Boss has file for tomorrow's court in his briefcase, turn off radio and do a once over of the office.
21. 5:50. Swear to self that *tomorrow* I will leave on time. Say goodbye to everyone in office and leave.
So, that is an average day for me. Some days I could add that my boss breaks into song, usually stuff I've never heard before. I also mildly flirt with Bridgette because Kelly hates it. I know. That is wrong. I just like her a lot. I still can't stand Kelly. She was a bitch to me yesterday. I kinda wondered if it was just my imagination, but then today she actually asked how I was! And then she *apologized* for how she acted yesterday!!! And then! She asked me if I would be willing to work on a Friday that she wants off. *rolls eyes* Of course.
What I would really like is to know what *your* day consists of. Some of you have expressed what you do in general terms, but I am really curious. Do you have to dress up? Do you see clients? Do you answer phones? I want to know what YOUR typical day is like. Does your day fly by or drag on?
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16 comments:
My friend, you REALLY don't want to know my typical work day. It makes this day look like an Indiana Jones movie.
I can so relate to your number 15.
Should I post my day here?
Ugh, I couldn't take working until 5:30 every day. By 4:00 I'm ready to cut my eyeballs out. Kudos to you.
My day:
1. Drop stuff in my office at 7:45 and grab hot water pot to fill. Also fill water bottle and put in fridge. Ready tea bag.
2. Listen to phone messages (only 1 or 2), read work email (for about 1 hour).
3. Get interrupted by boss asking questions about random things, sharing ideas she thought of in her sleep, or her latest family update.
4. Check personal email/blogs
5. Usually a meeting for an hour about a project, or send emails/make contacts for a project.
6. Grab a snack from lunchbag or minifridge in my office.
7. Do some lit searches or search grant Requests for Proposals, or do article/grant writing.
8. Lunch at desk, surfing blogs and OT, etc.
9. Check class website (for my grad school program), for any updates, and post a comment or two.
10. Usually an afternoon meeting, or work on stuff for two UW committees I'm on.
11. Browse some articles or reports
12. Organize human subjects protection paperwork, budget spreadsheets
13. Call research subject and conduct interview.
14. Organize interview data.
15. Email the student helper with tasks.
16. Surf web to see if I missed any afternoon fun. Hop on the bus at 4:00.
That's on a fairly productive day. I also spend time on curriculum development, analyzing data, making travel arrangements (support staff don't do that here) etc., depending on the current project.
I am about to change up my typical day. :)
For now, I deal with a handful of clients but not many. I can wear whatever I want to work. Flip flops, shorts, tshirts, it makes no difference. My new job is casual but not that casual. Jeans and decent shirt.
Now I get up between 5-5:30pm, drink my coffee, get ready and go to work. My first two hours at work I surf the net, email, and generally fuck off.
Then the boss comes in. So I do more of the same but I just hide it. *snort*
That's it. Every once in awhile I do a little bit of work but otherwise I get paid to surf. :)
OMG, Yay Carey! That makes me beyond happy. We should do dinner soon, to celebrate. :D
Yes Boo, here. I love reading about this stuff, as mundane as it can be, lol.
Kim, your day sounds so sophisticated compared to mine, lol!
Kim is fancy, ya know.
Am I allowed to post what my day was like when I was your age and worked full time in a big exciting medical research lab? Because now I do dull work from home part-time and pretty much make up each day as I go along. There is no typical. I do about 12-15 hours of entering on my computer per week and a little paper shuffling. That's it.
Totally boring and unexciting, but hey - the pay is good and I don't need benefits. Mostly what I do is enter bills for three small cities and a fire district into Quickbooks, print the checks and prepare packets for the city councils/fire district to review and sign the checks. So lame.
I think I would prefer everyone else's job most days.
Just yesterday, after my boss did the whole "make a call, move on to the next" thing, I had a woman return his call within a minute or so. I told her he was on another call and she insisted he was "probably leaving a message for her"...which I knew was not the case. I tried telling her that but she kept cutting me off, saying she would wait for him to finish leaving her a message. *snort*
Swami, I'm glad to know what you do...though I would have liked more detail. I'm nosy like that. :)
*gives Kim my job*
Well, I could tell you about a few back-stabbing scandals, favoritism in granting variances, secret (and therefore illegal) meetings and just general malfeasance and wasting public monies - but the details are all pretty dull. I like sex scandals best but I guess you need to be at a higher level of politics to have one of those. *sigh*
I just made a long post here about my day. Then I decided that I need to update my blog so I cut and pasted my day's activities over onto my blog. Thanks for the idea!
Hm, so I'm at your work door, MM & nobody is here! Darn that time difference.
I hope you had fun at the game yesterday. *smooch*
My Typical Day:
Plan to get up at 6:30 and leave for work by 7:00. Actually get up at 7:00 and leave at 7:30. Okay, make that 7:05.
Get to work, check email, check calendar for meetings I might have. Respond to anything my boss sent me.
Check personal email.
Find coffee. Either find someone to go to Peet's with, or see if coffee has been made.
Check to see what work deadlines are coming up and work on anything in progress. This usually means writing reports, tracking down people to find out how they're progressing in their tasks, maybe trying to make decisions about the processes we are working on implementing. If someone has a system problem, I talk with them, and try to troubleshoot what the problem is then come up with a solution.
Around 11:00, start thinking about lunch. Ask who's going where and try to find someone to go with. If no one is going out, I make my own plans to run errands and get food. Lunch is 11:45 or noon to 12:30 or 1:00.
After lunch, do some more work for a while, then I get bored and surf the internet. Around 3:00, I need something sweet and search the office for someone with candy. I usually find it. Around 4:00 or 4:30, I'm completely tired of working for the day and start to surf the internet more and thinking about what I'm going to do for the rest of the day. If I'm really busy, I'll keep working, but it usually gets pretty quiet by this time.
That's MY day. Not very exciting.
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