(no subject)

I had this post all written about my job anxieties and how messed up my first job made me and then it all kind of went out the window.

Because I went to the UPS Store to buy some tape this morning, and ended up meeting the President of the United States.

Literally while I was in the store, his motorcade and about fifteen cops rolled up and started cordoning the street off, so I did what anyone would do and stood behind the tape at the corner for like, half an hour, watching the secret service look menacing (secret service plainclothes men are hilarious btw, they all wear the same clothing) and the motorcade drivers clean their cars. Then he came out of Valois, the cafeteria on the corner that's older than sand and still doesn't take credit cards, and he walked across the street and ducked into the crowd and shook everyone's hand.

And I didn't have my phone, because this was just going to be a quick trip to buy packing tape, but that's how I surprise-shook Barack Obama's hand this morning and yet couldn't put it on Instagram.

It really does kind of make you feel patriotic, not so much meeting the leader of the country but being with a bunch of other people who are all super-duper excited to meet him and tell him they love him.

ETA: Fuck. I just stole this roll of tape.

(no subject)

When I was in undergraduate I had a fantastic mentor, and among other things he instilled in me a very strong work ethic I hadn't previously had. He also, perhaps a little unfortunately, accidentally instilled in me a deep loathing of failure. It wasn't all bad -- my senior thesis was very much on the theme of "Might as well aim for the moon; at least if you fall short you had good reason" -- but it was somewhat exacerbated by grad school.

In my first year of grad school I was subjected to a year-long test I didn't know I was taking, and for which I received the barest minimum assistance possible (the head of my department was checking out to retire, and wasn't paying much attention to the way I was slowly being ostracised by my peers; being fair to him, I didn't notice either). I failed, and it was a dual shock when I discovered I was taking a test and had failed it at the same time and was about to be kicked out of graduate school. Fortunately, one of the other professors swooped in and said, if you're department doesn't want him, mine does, and spent the next two years being awesome with me.

But that sting of defeat lingered, and my first "real" job out of school didn't help, since we were constantly being subjected to tests we had no way of passing, in order to make the manager feel better about his own failures in life. There was no real punishment for failing them, and we all knew he was an asshole, but the small, cringing part of me that simply hates failure of any kind took a real beating in those ten months. I didn't understand how toxic the environment was until a year later, reading back over my journal after the hack. (I checked up on the box office the other day and in the five years since I left, I've been promoted twice; my old manager has gone nowhere, which makes me feel better.)

But it left its mark. I have an unhealthily strong drive to prove myself and a fear of nonexistent consequences in a new job. In the past few weeks I've taken every assignment given to me as if it were a secret test, and sometimes I don't always know how I'm supposed to respond in order to pass. Which is apparently pretty evident, since my new boss sat me down yesterday and gave me a pep talk about how I seem really anxious about work that I've been doing already for two years, and how I've earned this job and it's not going to be taken away from me if I need to ask for help.

So, that's nice -- it's a supportive work environment and I appreciate that.

Now I just need to remind myself to take that at face value....