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By The River
Aug. 4th, 2023 10:18 amYesterday was not a very good day. I couldn't focus to save my life, so I ended up flailing at a lot of thing at the expense of so much willpower without the satisfaction of completing anything. It was one of those days where you feel behind on everything, unable to catch up on anything, and feeling disconnected from other folks.
The day job is proceeding apace, but I'm in this really weird headspace about it. It feels like I've got one foot out the door already, so I haven't been taking the on-boarding very seriously. This is unquestionably a mistake on my part; even if I'm planning to take another position as soon as it's offered, I did sign up to do the job. I should be putting in more effort to learn the tricks of the trade.
I'm a QC Analyst for a biomedical testing services company. Basically, I look over reports from the field technicians, check them against federal, industry, or company standards and mark every single error. This goes from something as simple as a typo to something as major as -- you know, not actually doing the job we were contracted to do. It's very exacting work that requires you to pay attention to the details. As you may know, this is not work my brain naturally tracks with.
But I thought it would be a really good idea to figure out how to do this kind of work. The skills I gain from paying attention to the small stuff can be applied to the rest of my life, you know? That's not the best reason to take the job, I understand, but there are other things too.
What's happened over the past two weeks is being thrown into a briar patch of draconian rules and references, with coworkers who are quite comfortable being there. Various items are called like, three different things, and -- you guessed it -- a lot of the industry terms can end up sounding a lot like other industry terms that are very different. Or the same testing material might be referred to with three different identifying numbers: one internal number, the manufacturer's number, and the client's reference number.
It's a lot, and it's all very confusing, and they don't have documentation that someone off the street could follow. My manager has been in meetings with me every morning since I've started, and I'm slowly getting the hang of things. But also, how much effort do I really want to spend if I'm out of here by September?
I think for now, even though I'm interviewing actively for two other positions, I'll just treat this job like it's my only one and figure out how to make things work. Breaking down tasks into concrete actions, with specific references to the exact pieces we need, might be the thing to do. I could, say, open up a Word document and write myself step-by-step instructions on how to check things, where to find them, and when to do what so that the order of operations starts to take shape. We'll see where it goes from there.
As far as I know, everyone I gave as references have replied to Stanford but I still haven't gotten any word. It's hard not to be worried about that, especially since I had mistakenly given a friend's fake Telegram telephone number for his contact information. Still, I know the university works very slowly so I won't count them out until I've heard they've passed. The fact that they're checking my references is a very good sign they're on the verge of making an offer, but who knows at this point?
I've been surprised and impressed with Instacart through the interview process. I wasn't expecting a lot out of the company, but the people I've talked to have been really great and the work actually sounds exciting. Researching the company has told me a lot about how great it is to work there, and I'm actually starting to believe I could make a good Customer Success Representative. There are still a lot of question marks, but at this point if they made me an offer I'd be happy to take it as well.
There are two more interviews today and one final interview on Monday for this round. After that, I'm not sure...there MIGHT be one final interview or they might skip right to references/offer. Now that I know I'll need actual professional references, I'll be reaching out to a few other ex-managers to see if I can ask for their help. I have a short list ready, it's just a matter of putting out the feelers.
There's an initial interview for a position at UC Santa Cruz next week as well, but I'm not even sure if that will work out. The job is listed as a hybrid position, and I don't think I would enjoy commuting to Santa Cruz two days every week. If it could be fully-remote that's one thing; I certainly don't mind taking the trip once or twice a month for whatever reason, but otherwise that might make things prohibitively expensive.
With the day job and interviews, I haven't had much time or space for anything else. There have been social obligations every day this week -- and while I love hanging out with friends, it's been difficult to carve out space for myself. Honestly I think that's been my big difficulty this week, hurrying from one thing to the next without the chance to stop, breathe, and be present. Once I'm on the other side of my birthday celebration weekend, I'd like to put a lot more focus on being present wherever I happen to be. It'll take a little bit of intentionality to figure out exactly how that's done.
The day job is proceeding apace, but I'm in this really weird headspace about it. It feels like I've got one foot out the door already, so I haven't been taking the on-boarding very seriously. This is unquestionably a mistake on my part; even if I'm planning to take another position as soon as it's offered, I did sign up to do the job. I should be putting in more effort to learn the tricks of the trade.
I'm a QC Analyst for a biomedical testing services company. Basically, I look over reports from the field technicians, check them against federal, industry, or company standards and mark every single error. This goes from something as simple as a typo to something as major as -- you know, not actually doing the job we were contracted to do. It's very exacting work that requires you to pay attention to the details. As you may know, this is not work my brain naturally tracks with.
But I thought it would be a really good idea to figure out how to do this kind of work. The skills I gain from paying attention to the small stuff can be applied to the rest of my life, you know? That's not the best reason to take the job, I understand, but there are other things too.
What's happened over the past two weeks is being thrown into a briar patch of draconian rules and references, with coworkers who are quite comfortable being there. Various items are called like, three different things, and -- you guessed it -- a lot of the industry terms can end up sounding a lot like other industry terms that are very different. Or the same testing material might be referred to with three different identifying numbers: one internal number, the manufacturer's number, and the client's reference number.
It's a lot, and it's all very confusing, and they don't have documentation that someone off the street could follow. My manager has been in meetings with me every morning since I've started, and I'm slowly getting the hang of things. But also, how much effort do I really want to spend if I'm out of here by September?
I think for now, even though I'm interviewing actively for two other positions, I'll just treat this job like it's my only one and figure out how to make things work. Breaking down tasks into concrete actions, with specific references to the exact pieces we need, might be the thing to do. I could, say, open up a Word document and write myself step-by-step instructions on how to check things, where to find them, and when to do what so that the order of operations starts to take shape. We'll see where it goes from there.
As far as I know, everyone I gave as references have replied to Stanford but I still haven't gotten any word. It's hard not to be worried about that, especially since I had mistakenly given a friend's fake Telegram telephone number for his contact information. Still, I know the university works very slowly so I won't count them out until I've heard they've passed. The fact that they're checking my references is a very good sign they're on the verge of making an offer, but who knows at this point?
I've been surprised and impressed with Instacart through the interview process. I wasn't expecting a lot out of the company, but the people I've talked to have been really great and the work actually sounds exciting. Researching the company has told me a lot about how great it is to work there, and I'm actually starting to believe I could make a good Customer Success Representative. There are still a lot of question marks, but at this point if they made me an offer I'd be happy to take it as well.
There are two more interviews today and one final interview on Monday for this round. After that, I'm not sure...there MIGHT be one final interview or they might skip right to references/offer. Now that I know I'll need actual professional references, I'll be reaching out to a few other ex-managers to see if I can ask for their help. I have a short list ready, it's just a matter of putting out the feelers.
There's an initial interview for a position at UC Santa Cruz next week as well, but I'm not even sure if that will work out. The job is listed as a hybrid position, and I don't think I would enjoy commuting to Santa Cruz two days every week. If it could be fully-remote that's one thing; I certainly don't mind taking the trip once or twice a month for whatever reason, but otherwise that might make things prohibitively expensive.
With the day job and interviews, I haven't had much time or space for anything else. There have been social obligations every day this week -- and while I love hanging out with friends, it's been difficult to carve out space for myself. Honestly I think that's been my big difficulty this week, hurrying from one thing to the next without the chance to stop, breathe, and be present. Once I'm on the other side of my birthday celebration weekend, I'd like to put a lot more focus on being present wherever I happen to be. It'll take a little bit of intentionality to figure out exactly how that's done.
