Lorraine Says . Stuff About Being The New Girl

A couple of days ago, my new boss wanted to use her log-in on my computer to get me some files I didn't have access to. "Sure," I said standing up and letting her sit in my chair to pull up the information.

She let the mouse hover over the Internet icon and all of my open tabs sprawled out in front of her. Crap.

"What is this?" she asked, trying to sound accusatory but letting a smile escape. I couldn't really tell if she was mad, but I felt pretty dumb anyways.

"What?" I played innocent.

"Blog-ger. And... y esto? What is this?" she questioned me.

"That's Youtube." I answered. "I just have it in the background so I can listen to music." I was blushing.

"Music?" she repeated doubtfully, sounding more like my mother and less like my boss. "Let's see... The New... LORRENA! QUE ES ESTO?"

I glanced at the Youtube screen and... perfect. Of course the next song in the playlist would be The New Pornographers.


"It's just music, I promise," I said, awkwardly shuffling my feet as she minimized everything and finally got down to business. After a few minutes she stood up to leave.

"I'm going to find out who you are blogging to," she said smiling and pointing a finger at me. It was a scary thing to hear, even though I'm aware it barely makes sense. I mean... who am I blogging to? The Internet? And even though she was mostly joking, I feel like she knows whenever I even think about opening Blogger.

Needless to say that things are a little different at BobU (my new job) than they were at Paper Folding USA. There was a system, a procedure and a style to my blogging over at Paper Folding USA, that mostly looked like: 1.) Have a lot of free time. b.) Have no one care what you are doing. cat.) Eat a lot of chocolate.

It was blogging magic. I have over 200 posts to prove it. Not that I'm calling my own posts magic (maybe a little) but the fact that I wrote so many without up and deciding that I wanted to quit forming sentences for life, is pretty magical.

So, with PFUSA out of the equation, my blogging around here has suffered. I should rephrase this to properly convey my problem: I'm suffering without my blogging.

Otherwise, I've been (ready to maybe hate me for this?) fantastically amazing, blessed beyond measure, happy, happy, happy, and just hours away from my first big paycheck. Money in the bank, say "haaaii."

(I'm ignoring the people I borrowed money from while I was broke, which was namely the entire time between BobU and PFUSA. And by "people" I mostly mean "my mom." WHATEVER MOM. WHAT DO YOU EVEN NEED MONEY FOR. Ahem.)

Anyhow, things to say have been accumulating but my blogging skillz have been dying. And so, I sit here at home, my contacts dry and probably trying to murder my eyes because they are evil and I hate you contacts, and with no pants on, trying to regain some sort of that magic I once had - or really, I once felt while blogging.

"Hmmm," says my internal monologue. "Where can I go for blogging inspiration? Who is funny?"

I seriously thought that and then played 8 rounds of spider solitaire. I only play on easy and I make sure I win EVERY. TIME.

Uh, what was I saying? Ah, yes, inspiration. It hit my internal monologue:

"Hey, me! You know who is funny?

... ME. Me back before I was unfunny!"

Not that I'm calling my own posts funny (maybe just a little) but rather I should say that I felt funny writing them? Not quite. I should say I was satisfied when I published them. So, I went back through old posts, back to a time when I felt good with how much I was writing and what I was writing.

Our number one commented on post? The one where I talk about getting stray hairs between my boobs.

I have nothing else to say about hair in between my boobs (even though a few people commented on my boobs looking good in the vlog from yesterday and I didn't even realize my boobs where like... in the vlog. My boobs were totally that guy that's behind the news reporter, trying to sneak in the frame and wave "hi" to all his friends. Gosh boobs. Stop being so immature.)

I will share with you, however, in the spirit of my new job and things I find awkward:

Seven Things Lorraine Finds Awkward About or During the First Three Weeks of Her New Job:

1.) The machines - So, I mean, once you know how to work one copy and/or fax machine you pretty much have the idea of how those things are. Press buttons, the machine noms the paper, then gives me back what I need. Well, uh...

     a.) No two machines are ever, ever alike. And you start pressing buttons or maybe pulling at the drawer that holds the paper and you pull and pull and look like an idiot only to realize like 5 minutes later that it has a button you push to open the paper drawer. Oh. 

    b.) These machines are fickle bastards and if you do something wrong they'll start yelling all, "BAH, BAH, BAH. NEW GIRL IS MESSING UP THE EXPENSIVE STUFF AND IS STUPID. BAH."

    c.) Stuff just gets stuck. I've never, ever come across a paper shredder and been all, "I"m just going to take this handful of papers I want to shred and shred them." No. Paper shredders pretty much only want to shred like 2-3 papers at a time and sometimes they'll decide that you know what they don't want to be in life? A shredder of paper.

    d.) No one looks cool while making copies or sending a fax. Okay, maybe I just don't but I'm pretty sure you don't either.


2.) Lunch time - Seriously. All I want for lunch is a bag of M&M's. Please, learn this about me, new co-workers, and stop with the questioning and pressuring!


3.) Oh, so you know him? - Paper Folding USA actually owns the building that I am now working in. It was pretty funny when I told them where I was going because all my PFUSA co-workers were all, "oh, we'll know where to find you in a non-creepy way. It'll be amazing."

So... it's been awkward. The first time it was because of a duck. See, there were these two huge planters right outside of the entrance to our office. There is a little lake-type thing behind our building, on one edge of a golf course. A duck from the golf course found her way to our planters and had 14 eggs. We fed her and checked up on her every day and my co-workers had basically adopted her as an office pet/mascot.

One day, I was going downstairs to Sbuxs with co-workers when I see the building maintenance guy from PFUSA. "Hey!" I yell out. "How are you Maintey." He asks me if that's where I work and we are polite and nice and then he's all, "yeah, I'm here to move the duck."

If there were a soundtrack to life, that's when you would've heard a record screech. SAY WUH? My co-workers were pissed. Maintey, on orders of the building owners, kicked the duck out of her nest and moved the eggs into the bushes. Maintey was all, "I talked to the nature people and they said it was fine. She'll find them over there."

The duck did not look fine. She wandered all around the front of our office, walking in circles where the planter and her eggs used to be. The story once we got back upstairs was that "Lorraine's friend had moved the eggs." -_-

Well... uh...he's not really my friend friend...? (Also, they put the eggs back because I guess people were complaining. It was too late. The duck sat on them for a while and then abandoned them, I think because she realized they were dead. They were due to be hatched any day now. We say, "oh no our baby ducks," at least twice a day now.)


4.) The Person You Don't Like - I can already tell who it is. She's about 8 times louder than a normal human being needs to be, her accent is SO ANNOYING, she calls everyone "cookie," except she drags it out, "cooookie!" like she's selling  Cookie Crisps and she talks so freakin' much. I kind of feel like I'm too new to not like anyone and I definitely can't let anyone know I don't like someone. She's been there for a long time too. Faking it is hard, yo.


5.) Office supplies - The ones provided just do not meet the standards that I need them to be. I mean, I had to tell them I needed a stapler at my desk, and that was like, a special request. Obviously, they didn't know that I need different colored highlighters, pens, mechanical pencils with 0.5mm lead, coordinating Post-its, labels of all kinds, etc, etc. I'm kidding, I didn't expect them to provide any of that, but the awkward part? Bringing this stuff into work.

"Hey Lorraine is that a three-hole puncher in your purse or are you happy to see me?"

Also, I want to put some inspirational quotes I pulled out of a book and put into frames on my desk but seriously, it really makes me embarrassed to bring them in. :(


6.) "Thanks for calling me!" - The way the phones are set up, whatever call rings at my boss' number also rings on mine. If she's not there, I can basically answer her phone from mine, but no one ever really told me how they want me to answer. I started off with, "Bob U, Lorraine speaking, how may I help you?" but this confused the ish out of people who were all, "uh... I thought I dialed Boss," and would then hang up to "try again." I want to say something like, "BobU, Boss' line, Lorraine speaking" but I don't know if that's acceptable. 'Cause then would I use her first name, last name or both? How much am I complicating my own life and am I the only one who thinks of these things?


7.) At least I have pants on - In my cube way in the back of PFUSA, I would often slip off my shoes and sit Native American style on my rolley chair. The habit has stuck, except now, I'm the first person people see when they walk into operations. And then when my boss calls me, I have to awkwardly untangle myself and put my shoes on and... yeah. I should stop that now.


Clearly, I am the best employee of ever.

No, but really, I feel pretty good there. It feels like a good fit, I actually like a good majority of the people, I like the work and I feel people are getting a good idea of who I am. It's been a lot of fun, so far, and I haven't felt this way about a job in a long time. "I haven't felt this way about," just made me feel like I was proposing to my job. Hai job, wanna marry me?

Anyways, please tell me you can relate to at least some of this so I don't feel like a total losery loser.

And if you watched my 8 minute vlog and read this all the way to the end? I'm pretty sure I have to marry you now, or something.

I have a lot of stuff to catch up on around the Internet. Here's to settling down. <3