Our First Day!

Today, my friends, was a success.  The morning went smoothly, all three of us were ready to go on time, I remembered everything that the kids were supposed to have at daycare...it was great.  Well, it was great until I actually had to leave the babies at daycare.  Khloe was excited to see other kids.  She sat on the couch with Jose and bounced up and down, smiling the whole time.  Kaden broke down and clung to my leg in tears.  I felt horrible leaving my sweet boy, but I knew he was in good hands.  The other kids came up to him and introduced themselves and told him that they were happy and that they wanted him to play with them.  They were all very sweet.

Here's my happy girl!

And here's my baby boy, stuck on my leg instead

of sitting with his sister for a picture.

I finally tore myself away from Kaden's pleading sobs with Khloe happily waving bye-bye to me.

My first day of work went pretty well, except that I had a horrible headache all day from reading and staring at PowerPoint presentations.  My supervisor is awesome - she also has two kids, a boy and a girl, and she's a Diet Dr Pepper fan.  All the people I trained with and met were really nice.  My whole day was basically just filling out paperwork and learning all about company policies, safety, and perks. Speaking of perks, this job comes with lots of them.  Here's a list I'll call:

10 Sweet Things About My New Job:

1.  My insurance pays 90/10 and it's only like $140/month for me and both kids.

2.  I get life insurance, dental, vision, accidental death and dismemberment, and a 401K.

3.  If I put 6% of my paycheck into my 401K each month, the company will match that.

4.  Since the mother company is in Denmark and they want us to feel like we're all part of the same     family, we get cool European perks, like 12 paid holidays each year and an exercise room.

5.  I can pick my hours and change them pretty much whenever I want to in order to better accommodate my needs.

6.  If I need something for my workspace, I can just order it.

7.  I can carry my cell phone all day long if I want to.

8.  Someone makes photocopies of the two crosswords in the paper every morning and leaves them on the tables in the lunchroom for our word-gaming pleasure.

9.  It's really clean.

10.  I can wear comfy shoes.

They also gave me quality schwag - no pens or keychains for these employees!

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a cell-phone-in-the-mirror picture, which I despise, but look at my comfy new sweatshirt.  The inside of the hood is really cute plaid, too.  I got a stainless steel water bottle, too, but Kaden absconded with that as soon as he saw it.

And, as promised, the conclusion to the Shoe Dilemma:

I wore my everyday, worn-out Keens with my nice work clothes.  No one said a word, and when I asked my supervisor about "building-dedicated shoes", she said I wouldn't be in areas where I'd need them frequently enough to worry about it.  She said to wear whatever shoes I want.  I think I'll get a new pair after my first paycheck - I've about walked the bottoms off of these shoes.

Toward the end of the day, I had time scheduled specifically for reading a bunch of SOPs, which sounded dreadfully dull.  One of the Development Engineers that I interviewed with stopped by my cubicle and asked if I'd rather go help him with an experiment.  Of course I jumped at the chance, so I went with him for about an hour.  I'm not sure what details I can and can't give about the research at ALK, but I'd rather err on the side of secrecy.  I don't think it would be crossing any lines to say that it's an experiment to further purify one of the pollens we're working with, and that I thought it was very fun.

I'm not entirely sure what my job is yet, which sounds weird, but really, the description I read was one thing, and what people kept telling me today was another, so I think I'm going to be doing mostly technical write-ups for the experiments that are currently underway, and assisting as needed.  I met the QC (quality control) girls today and they're like microbiology chicks, so now I see why I was asked during my interview if I had ever thought about working in QC.  That's another nice thing about this company though...I can move up or even side to side if I feel like I would be a good fit for a job in a different area.  I really think I'm going to like working for this place.

And for those of you worried about my darling little boy, he calmed down after I left and had a great day.  He loved going to "school" with his little class, and they learned about colors today.  He proudly brought me this when I picked him up:

He also showed me his classroom and the cubby where he hangs his coat and leaves his boots.  They said it takes most kids about a week to adjust to the routine, but that Kaden and Khloe were fine and are both very good kids.  Yay for a decent first day!

Working Girl

So I have awesome news (and no, it's not that I'm actually blogging again...although that's pretty cool too).  I have a job!  I just got hired as a Product Development Technician at ALK-Abello Source Materials, Inc. in Post Falls.  Even though the job has been explained to me, I'm certain I won't actually know what I do until I start training, but I know I'll love it.  I think it's a sort of research and development position.  I know that it requires me to use my science-y skills, and I know that it involves a lot of writing, so both of the things I love the most will be incorporated into my job.  Isn't that the dream?

I also get to work with these guys:

It's a dust mite.  Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus for my fellow science geeks.  I don't care what you're thinking because I'm excited about it.  During my interview, my interviewers had all closed their notes and we were just talking about a few random things.  One supervisor told me that the job gets kind of gross sometimes.  I said, "I love gross!  Gross is my forte."  It made them all laugh and one of them even opened his notes again to quote me on that.  I'd like to think this is how they chose me over the other candidates.

Anyway, it's very late and I should be sleeping, but instead, I'm stressing out about my work attire.  When I interviewed for a previous position at that company, I saw most of the techs wearing these blue scrub/track suit things with tennis shoes.  They have to wear those in the work area, so it wouldn't really matter what I wore to work because I'd just change into that every day.  For this new job, my dress code is "business casual," which means I either need to:

A) Lose 10 pounds over Thanksgiving so that I fit into my old work clothes, or
B) Go buy new work clothes

The first option is ideal but certainly not feasible, so I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll be shopping on Black Friday.  Thankfully, my mom has the day off and can wrangle the babies so I can try on a pair of pants without Kaden opening the door of my fitting room to show the world my cottage cheese thighs.  I really should do a blog post on what it's like to attempt to buy clothes while toting Kaden and Khloe around in a double stroller, but I digress.

My next dilemma is regarding footwear.  I've had my share of jobs where I'm on my feet all day, and the right shoes make a huge difference.  I don't mind paying $80 for a pair of shoes if it's for a good cause, but in this case, I don't really know how much time I'll be standing.  I assume during training that I will stand and move around a lot.  The HR guy told me I would probably want to invest in a pair of building-dedicated shoes, but I don't know what kind.  "Business Casual" would suggest that I need some sort of close-toed, mary-jane flat or something with a low heel, but I completely forgot to see what kind of shoes all of the PDTs were wearing when I was in there.  The Production Techs all wear comfy athletic shoes of their choice.  My choice would be a new pair of Keens because they last a long time, they're comfortable, and I love them.  I just don't know if they're acceptable or not.

My rational side is intervening and telling me that I'm WAY over-thinking this.  I know that whatever shoes I get will probably be fine.  The company is really into keeping up morale and making sure the employees are happy, and if Keens make me happy, I'm sure they're allowed.  I'd just really hate to buy a new pair and find out that they aren't.  I know I could wait and ask on my first day, but what the heck will I wear on my feet during my first day?  I can tell you that all of my business casual shoes are out of the question because none of them are tolerable past the length of an interview.

Stay tuned - I'll post all about my first day and you'll get to see how this shoe conundrum turns out.  Oh, but I signed some huge confidentiality contract or something, and since my friend Elisa just got fired from a job for writing about work in her own blog, I'll need to figure out what I can and can't say. Wish me luck!!