An ominous throat tickle woke me in the night. I tossed and turned in a haze of fever induced denial combined with first day jitters. There was no way I was missing my first day of work.

Yesterday, blissfully healthy and adorned in shiny new suiting, I attended a seminar offered to our clients. It was a good way to learn what kind of services our customers are likely to want from us. This morning started with an internal meeting that was essentially the flip side of the same material. I wasn’t too surprised when the presenter, a dignified man in his 50’s, recommended half a dozen podcasts. I was startled only one of my coworkers knew what a podcast was and he didn’t subscribe to any. This is going to be a different environment.

One of the owners kindly treated me to lunch. In discussion, it turned out she’d particularly wanted to bring me on because of my tech experience. She’d like someone who can sell to the Generation Y/Millenials (I’m technically Gen X.) Most of the staff is older, male, and not terribly tech savvy. Once I have my feet wet, she’s excited by the idea of me starting a company blog. When I’m get some training at Corporate (probably August) she’d like me to pitch starting a company wide Facebook presence to the marketing people up there. They have plenty of people who can talk to the Boomers, but the Boomer’s kids are literally twice the size of my generation. (Generation X: The Most Aborted Generation In History!)
 
Then I got to “play with some product.” I would’ve been a lot more excited by the prospect of life sized leggos if I wasn’t running a 100 degree fever. I suspect the crisis worked out well for me. No one noticed I was a little fuzzy, although the scent of Ricola might’ve cued them in if they were paying attention.
 
After that, it was time for more tour, a big stack of product brochures to memorize, and a little vague discussion about finding nontraditional clients. This amused me since I still don’t know much about their traditional clients. However, I do know management is looking for people who are willing to do something unusual. Hiya.
 
They kindly offered to let me go half an hour early rather than start a new chunk of training at the end of the day. Well, mostly they needed to get back to the crisis du jour. My bed cried out to me. I went outside, eager to beat rush hour traffic, only to discover my car battery completely drained. Y’see, I have a small electrical problem. The car refuses to turn the fog lamps off unless I have the right turn signal on. I forgot to perform the magic ritual upon parking and thus was punished. I wasn’t about to go upstairs and ask one of my bosses for a jump.
 
Luckily, my brother-in-law generously sent a minion to my rescue. Thank you, JJ! Getting my car jumped was a bit of an adventure, but hey, isn’t it always? A little game of parking lot bumper cars while in neutral and some adventures in finding where the hell they hid the negative post on a PT Cruiser later and zoom, I was off to a walk-in clinic.

Since my throat is swelling closed, the doctor swabbed me for strep. The good news is the test came back negative. The bad news is that probably means this is something viral so just tough it out. I now have “viscous lidocaine” to gargle in order to numb the pain and a work release note from the doctor. Oh, hell no. It’s my second day. I’m going in. Now, if they decide to send me home in order to cut back on their exposure to whatever the hell I might have, that’s their decision, but I’m not calling in sick my second day of work. DayQuil and I can tough it out.

Tags: improbable odds, work