Life Highlights: Day One of Adulting

Yesterday was a landmark day as I started my position as an “EA” (Executive Assistant) at HBO! It’s a “temp to full” position, meaning that I’m still technically under my staffing agency until I either am let go/quit the assignment or I am hired on full time.  It’s essentially like a probationary period, without actually being hired under HBO.  I’ve been keeping the whole affair fairly quiet, as I don’t want to officially announce anything across my social media (this blog being an exception) until I (hopefully) get the full time position officially.

However, as a result I had no time to write on my blog, as I was busy assimilating myself into the position.  So far (as I can tell from one day) everyone seems quite pleasant and the job seems fairly straightforward.  Obviously there will be a learning curve, but I’m not discouraged by any means.

The executive I’m assisting also seems like a great fit for my personality type.  The first impression I got from her was “trusting and fair” – I liked that she understands “life happens” and isn’t going to monitor the clock, trusting that I’ll know how long I need to stay in order to get my work done.  And I also like that with that trust, she expects me to do my work with thoroughness, precision, and without excuses.  Not to mention that her expectations seem fair – she doesn’t expect me to know everything on day one, and to actively ask questions if I need help.  I know that I couldn’t be an assistant for “just anyone” – especially if our personalities clashed.  So I’m very happy to see that prayers have been answered regarding this concern.  Meanwhile, my co-workers all seem friendly and helpful.  I work with one who is also a massive Bowie fan as well! Obviously, this made me extremely happy.  And all of them are there if I need to ask for any sort of advice which is really lovely too.

I think the main thing that threw me for a loop yesterday was my sharply conflicting emotions about the whole experience.  I felt weirdly excited, nervous, and hollow all equally distributed throughout the day.  I felt simultaneously overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the whole process.  Thinking everything through, I realized that I’ve never worked a “proper 9-5” before, and that it was a new way to re-schedule my life.

Before now, school was always from 8:30-15:10 (or from 8:30-13:45 on Thursdays).  Then university varied depending on the day, but normally I would try to stack my classes onto the fewest days possible in order to have lots of space in-between during the week to work on whatever I wanted, as weekends were always reserved for the Mouse.  Which, speaking of, working in restaurants conditioned me to think of weekends as prime work days rather than week days, where hours would be shorter – and even then, most shifts (if you’re not doing a double) only consist of 4-5 hour increments.  And even for the career I was pursuing for the first three years of university, the work schedule was styled in the fashion of college in the sense that freelance meant stacking your work into long days for a few months versus spread out over the year.  In short, I’ve never had a job (or actively thought of doing a job) since I was fifteen where you’re expected to show up Monday through Friday, “9-5” (although it’s actually more like “9-6:30”).  And the rest of my daily/working experience also conditioned my lifestyle and expectations to imagine a life where that wasn’t my reality.  I mean, even as a temp I would be able to go when I wanted to go in on assignments that varied in length, company, and position.

Now, that I’ve rather abruptly settled into such a routine, it’s … odd.  It feels like a loss to realise that things like doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping now have to conform to the “norm” of outside traditional working hours.  It’s weird to think that this is what most people do every day, and the mundane reality of it all.

I feel underwhelmed in the sense that I know what the job is, and it doesn’t seem like I’ll ever get the “film set high” again (in reference to the adrenaline rush akin to “runner’s high” that I would get on a film set, not marijuana).  I’m also not in the exact department I want to be in (yet), as a lot of this is to flesh out my resume in order to get to be a part of the Industry that I actually want to grow in (specifically, development/pre-production).  And even so, I currently don’t have a lot of “proper” work to do yet, as I’m still settling in and IT is still getting my account up and running so I am synced and allowed into all the systems that I need to access in order to do my job.  It feels like a lot of build up to essentially be left hanging.  Perhaps soon I will long for the day where it feels this peaceful once more, but for now I feel like I was building up to an ideal of a “fancy job as a fancy assistant in a fancy city” that was for naught.  Thankfully, though also surprisingly, my life is not like Anne Hathaway’s in The Devil Wears Prada.

Yet at the same time I feel overwhelmed on an interpersonal level.  Everyone I am working with is obviously a new face, and as someone who somewhat feels social anxiety, trying to learn everyone’s name and face and department feels a bit demanding.  Of course, on an intrapersonal level as well, wanting to make a good first impression on my boss and getting to know her are also things that add to the list of “Scary New Things”.  And on a technical level, trying to understand the various programmes and forms/formats that are the standard in house procedures is the cherry on top.  Sure, it won’t be too hard after a few tries, but the crash course is not something I particularly relish.

And in between those moments of under and overwhelmed expectations, I felt the traditional pull of nervousness mixed with excited-ness to start something new.  The emotions inherently present in the concept of a last potential “big change” (for at least a year), starting to establish a routine, were all accounted for.  However, what I didn’t account for was feeling … hollow.  Sporadically, three times throughout the day yesterday I felt empty.  And I couldn’t explain it until later when I realized that my emotional/mental health is truly on the mend.

There’s been times in my life where I have felt overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings in the face of change, just like any other person.  However, if I begin to feel anxious and stressed from these emotions in a setting where I can’t deal with them right away (like in a work setting), instead of healthily interacting and processing the emotions, my mind simply marks them as “too complicated to deal with right now” and compartmentalizes them away.  This is great in a siege situation, if I truly don’t have time to interact fully with my emotions.  However, I find myself unable (or perhaps unwilling) to take the emotions back out and properly sort through them once I’m able to be in a more conductive situation and setting.  For the first time in my life, I was able to realize a moment where I shut down, and it felt strange and foreign.  So in the end, I felt like I had reasonably processed through everything, although no conclusive thoughts or statements were made (much like much of my life post-Torrey, I’m afraid).

Thus, in conclusion, day one was as successful as it could be, relatively speaking.  And today, day two, is likewise promising as I slowly begin to take on more of my responsibilities as an EA.