Time is on my side

Yeah, so forgive me for kind of picking this story up towards the end. It must feel like opening the movie with war veteran Odysseus strolling around Ithaca. Just know a certain someone has already thrown a few things up on her blog about our heroes' epic journey. Go find it. Start with the links to the right.

Anyway, if you've ever started a new job, and if you can afford a computer, I am guessing you have, you know the first couple days are meetings and training and trying to stay awake.

So I'm sitting in timesheet training this morning. And, the attendees were from my agency and our sister agency. The agencies use two totally different timesheet systems. So, 60 percent of the room got instructions first, while the other 40 percent of us were told to not pay attention to any of this because it would only serve to confuse us.

Deal. I can take that 10 minutes to write down things I still can't find.

So, it was during this exercise that it came up that our time sheets must have 35 hours on them.

Wait a second. What? Wha? Really? But?

Yeah. 9 to 5. Hour for lunch. Five days a week. 35 hours.

Now, I routinely logged 50 to 60 hour weeks at every job I ever had in Austin. I had a 20 hour Monday just a couple months ago. In fact, I think that was the week I first came up here to interview. And the standard was always 40 hours. Always. In fact, in order for an employer to not have to give me benefits, once, I was "limited" to 37.5 horus a week so as to not be a full time employee.

Do I expect to only work 35 hours every week? Not at all. Am I glad that's the benchmark? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Kelly, Janice and others keep waiting for this town to kick my ass. It will. But I just found an extra 5 hours a week to drown my sorrows in a bar.