Soggy Socks

Ok, well, I'm still customizing, but we'll get there.

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I had my second working interview on Monday at an Upper East Side pediatric dentist. Everything they say about Park Ave. being posh and what not is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. There were lots of nannies, and trophy wife/mothers in really expensive yoga gear. They amuse me.

This is how Monday went:

Setting your alarm to go off blasting Andrew W.K. yelling at you that it's "time to party, let's party!" is sadistic. It's worse than sadistic at five am. So I do this roll-slide-fall-out-of-bed thing and drag my angsty alarm clock with me, trying, all bleary and upset, to find the off button.

I got to the train station on time, but I couldn't find parking. So I drove around and around and panic started to wave over me as I watched the first train, and then the second, leave (full of, I imagined, the responsible people who caught them on time and probably woke up to sensible things like NPR or the traffic report). I finally parked half a mile away and took the third and latest possible train into Grand Central. I show up only a little late, but I still got the stinkeye from the doctor I'd be working with.

When I was changing into scrubs, I fell against the door handle of the bathroom. I have a bruise on my back that's still killing me.

At this point, it's not even 9 am.

During the day, I managed to piss the doctor off several times because I wasn't working exactly the way she wanted me to. This woman was micro-managing me to the point that she was demonstrating how to walk around the room. To be fair, I managed to screw up the schedule by making it behind, because I wasn't working as fast as everyone else. It's hard learning a new office and working quickly, though. (“Why don't you cry about it, you big baby” I can hear you thinking. I know, I know. But still.)

I got yelled at, constantly, for not doing things I didn't know about.

I came around the corner and two of the doctors were discussing me. One of them did the "sh sh! She's right there" thing. Ugh. What a shitty feeling.

It was time to leave around six. I felt like I did terribly all day; you know that really defeated feeling you get, where you're like "Ugh, I'm such a loser!"? That's where I was. Also, I have this weird pinched nerve thing in my shoulder, and every once in a while it ROCKS me with this massive migraine I can't shake. I had had one of those going since noon.

I closed my finger in a door right before I left the office.

I got on the train home. I bought a ticket going to Fairfield, and the conductor took it, no questions, but the train I was on terminated in Stamford, about four (give or take) stops before I needed to get off. I’ve never gotten on the wrong Metro-North train in my life! I got off the train and told the woman behind the counter my story. She wrote me a note explaining what happened and would they please let me ride up to Fairfield on the next local train. As she signed and dated it, she told me "this may work, or not." It did (but the conductor made fun of me).

I got off the train and into the pouring rain. Remember, my car is half a mile away. I began trudging across the parking lot, got twenty feet and "splash!" I'm in a puddle up to my ankles, and my everything-below-mid-calf is soggy, including my socks. I'm a mellow person, but I can't stand soggy socks; it's one of the very few things that puts me "beside myself".

This was the point I burst into tears.

My thanks to Phil, who told me I'm awesome (and texted it to my phone for me to carry around), and Ed, who sent me notes all day to make me smile. It meant a lot.