8/14/14 — “Uh…I’m the temp.”

The temp agency placed me in a marketing company two days ago. For one to two days my job was (and to some extent still is) to place postage on about 1200 small boxes one by one by one. If you listened closely you’d probably hear the faint murmur of me talking/singing/making pen-beats to myself. To be honest, part of me felt some real catharsis plugging away at the postage machine in that small secluded mailroom; this would mark the first paying office job I’ve had in years and putting on the whole social-mask was exhausting. I haven’t been this social in what feels like ages…I have to relearn some of those skills. It’s a decent $15.50/hr so I should be feeling a lot better in a week.

The very next day, Tuesday, I was offered a 2 month job at the company doing more mindless work but at a desk, with a computer, doing computer things. Bittersweet. Its definitely a good thing I’m here (I’m working!) but it also means learning social cues again, figuring out their brand of office bureaucracy, not being too much of a recluse and seeming rude, and at the same time learning to commit to a topic of conversation and not jumping from thought to thought like a kid who devoured a bowl of pixie sticks. Eh first world introvert problems right?

One thing is certain, I needed this—change.