First week at work

I am a liar.  I am being rewarded for it at work and I don’t think I am going to stop any time soon.  I only feel about 15% sorry about it.

See cuz I work as a researcher in the medical field now (can you tell I am presenting it in the best possible light?) I call US doctors and administrators all evening.  For the first half of the week I was a professional young American, who earnestly wanted to talk to you and get your professional opinion.

That got me just one step past nowhere.

So I became Scottish.  Now people sometimes call me Sir, and secretaries in Florida, Ohio, Washington, Connecticut, and Oregon gave me the direct number to their office to call back tomorrow after they spend today trying to get one of their oncologists to make an appointment with me.

Cheers, oi do apershiate yer help, ye have a grreat day.

All in all the job is actually more fun than I was preparing myself for (even in addition to the fact that I get to play Scotsman).  The other researchers come from all over the world and have varied stories, although a heavy majority are in Belgium for a spouse or partner.  I have Kenya on one side and Australia on the other, although I think he left because as of yesterday it is China.  Behind me are a couple Portugals, one Philippines, Ghana, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Malaysia, and an actual Belgian.

The doctors in the US are known as among the hardest to get in touch with, and the second rudest, following only the UK, although I have found that for the most part they are brusquely polite when they tell you to go away.  The rudest hospital I have yet encountered was in Defiance, Ohio.  According to trusty Wikipedia, the town was founded by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, has a population of about 17,000, and is almost 90% white.  They are so far the only people to just hang up after a few words of my introduction, and I have to wonder about the psychological effects of living in a town called Defiance.  It’s a very strong word.  And they were very lame people.

(If anyone from Defiance ever reads this and you are in fact not lame, please let me know, I would love to be corrected.)

Let’s see…  The only other moment that stands out from the calls this week was when a voice recognition program (I can’t believe these are still used, they just don’t work well enough) picked up on the background noise in the office as my request and sent me to the Proctology Department.

So I basically enjoy the job, do not dread going in to work at all, and would say several of my colleagues are friends already.  And the lack of windows makes sense, because looking at a clock set to Eastern Standard Time and having no window to remind me it is actually 8:00 PM, I keep referring to my dinner break as lunch, but when I leave I am so tired it makes perfect sense that it is basically bedtime.

Unfortunately the office I work in has poor ventilation, + two researchers who came in coughing on Monday = approximately 90% of the office sick by Friday.  Thursday night was not so much sleep as an interminable series of trips to pee (I swear I didn’t drink THAT much tea), sweating, and rather amazing temperature fluctuations.  So I’m gonna take this bundle of body aches and go sit on the couch with a book.  And look, it’s a rainy day!  Wull tha’s jus lovlay.