The Office

In honor of it being Monday, the beginning of a new work week, I thought I might share with readers what I do on an average day at the Office.

6am - Rise & Shine! Hot Damn- another day, another dollar.

7am - My biggest chore of the day (getting ready) is done. (It honestly is the biggest chore because when the dress code is "business casual", i find myself standing in front of the closet for half an hour wondering just how far I can push the "casual" aspect of "business casual" each day. Does that mean a pair of nice jeans and a black blazer over a tee with some heels? Yyyyep.) I also make sure to throw the cat a toy and dart out the front door as he chases after it in the opposite direction. Shizzle, I forgot my phone!

7:15am - Arrive @ the office in Athens, Ohio, park car, swat away gnats that originate from the swampy area behind our parking lot, enter building, dump lunch in community fridge, unlock my office door - WOWZA I have a lot of Marshall Crap in here - check voicemails, turn on computer and Ipod Dock. It's going to be a lovely day.

7:30-11am Now the real fun happens! Sift through mail, organize, file, enter data, answer emails, answer phone if no one else can, converse with co-workers by yelling back and forth across the hallway, adjust the thermostat 900 times b/c it's never the right temperature in the building...ya know - do my officey-thing.

11am- 11:30am - PLAY (by eating as I check email, answer phones, browse the net. I do way more eating and browsing than anything... but only at playtime!)

11:30am-3pm - Continue to do "my thing" the rest of the afternoon.

3pm-3:30pm - Take agency mail to the post office and battle university traffic. This almost always includes nearly running over several college students on bikes with their Ipod earphones in.

3:30pm - ? - Work off daily stress at WellWorks, where the arc trainer almost always makes me want to vomit but i use it anyway.

Now, you're wondering a couple of things: "What kind of office do you work at?", and, "What is your THING?"My office is at drug/alcohol and mental health tx agency that serves Southeastern Ohio. Try to Google it based on the information i've given you - everyone likes a challenge!

"My thing" consists of a lot of things, and the longer i've worked for this agency, the more random stuff gets added to "My thing". I must say, I love the added random job duties, they keep the job interesting. Anyway, "My Thing" happens in Administration, where I am one half of the Quality Improvement Department. I get to do fun things like read incident reports, enter consumer surveys into a database, manage lots and lots of data in Microsoft Excel, produce quarterly and annual reports, attend and take minutes at monthly meetings, help in maintaining agency accreditations, etc. I began working @ the agency in the QI Dept. in July 2006. Since then, I have become the unofficial Microsoft Excel know-it-all geekazoid, so I help nearly every department at every location with their Excel questions/issues. I've built some pretty crazy spreadsheets in my time... Ohhhh yeah, I LUVVV me some spreadsheets. Especially with multi-colored tabs at the bottom. I developed the agency newsletter in 2007 and it's still going... I don't know if anyone is still reading it, but I'm still producing it. I also helped to makeover our agency website in 2009. I couldn't do too fascinating of a job, but it serves its purpose and I don't have any fancy schmancy web design software on my work computer anyway. I also smack around the postage machine when it isn't working correctly, scream at my printer as it spits paper across my office, help the executive admin with various computer tasks (chart building, oh yeah!) and visit with coworkers for a little chitty-chat every now and then. I also get to attend out of town trainings a couple times per year which is kinda nice - I'm real big on education. And we always make sure to celebrate birthdays with lots and lots and lots of cake and more cake. Sometimes Ice Cream, too.

I would have to say the biggest perk about where I work is my actual office. I'm lucky enough to have my very own, and it's completely covered in Thundering Herd banners, other sports team pennants, lots of photos, desk toys, and a fun Marshall rug. My office pairs nicely with the independent worker type of position i have. The second best perk is a tie between my co-workers and birthday parties. These three things mush together and form a pretty cool place to work, it being my first job out of college and all - Athens is small, so I'm pretty lucky. I do look forward to leaving, however - only because I know I will have to in a year. Todd will become Dr. Todd Ph.D. in less than a year, and away we'll go, to who knows where! Until then, I get to figure out what I would like to do with my life next. A master's degree? A whole new path in something ridiculously different than anything i've ever done? It won't be long until I'll be finding out. Until then, I'll just enjoy my days @ the office.

Speaking of The Office, which is a show I dearly LOVE, I recently took the Office Character Personality Quiz on NBC.com. The results were as follows: "You've got a split personality! You're most like JAN and PAM!" I think that's a pretty accurate result...