How You Know You're the Office Noob

I'm getting worse at blogging regularly, but this month I have an excuse.  The validity of my excuse is debatable, but I'm going to use it anyway.  So there.  

I've been crap lately because I started a new job a few weeks ago.  I've moved on from a full time career in listening to people shout at me about car tax while I do colouring in (disclaimer:  wasn't all bad - got to work with some lovely people, and I will hold the fragmented memories of nights out I've had with said people for a long time.  And they let me do colouring in) to a more rewarding one where I have to use my brain in different ways.

My brain is not used to this.  Until I get accustomed to it, I think I'll continue coming home every weeknight with the I.Q of a baked bean, attempting to put my dishes in the washing machine and staring into empty mugs which held tea that I have no memory of drinking.  Or making, come to think of it.  It's challenging and absorbing, and so far the days are flying by more quickly than I can blink (I have very dry eyes.  Shut up, it's a thing). Also, I've discovered that I actually enjoy commuting with a flask of coffee and a load of podcasts to burn through at the ass crack of dawn.  I found out that I don't really mind occasionally having to get up at 5am to pootle to the office for an early shift either.  What's wrong with me?

My new work folk have made being a noob a nice experience for me, and I'm trying to return the favour by fucking as little shit up as possible.  So, far, so good.  I think.  I mean, nothing's caught fire under my watch and no one has sustained minor injuries as a result of my work.  Even if I am working in an office and the biggest injury I could probably inflict is a paper cut.  It's been a good couple of years since I've been the office fresh(ish) meat.  Here's what I've been reminded it's like to be the new guy in town:

How You Know You're the Office Noob

1.  You're so "helpful" that it's annoying.

Yes, you're eager to show willing and so grateful to have been given your new role that you offer to do EVERYTHING.   You then need to ask those same people you've ever-so-kindly taken those jobs from (because you're a bloody saint, you are) to show you very... slowly... what to do from scratch, ultimately resulting in them doing all the work anyway but in half the speed they normally do it so that your blank little mind can keep up.

"Wait, wait.  Can you show me that again?  I missed that part."  Look how helpful I'm being!

2.  Offering to make tea for the first time = stress sweats.

Okay.  So there are about 20 people in the room with me, and every one of them has made me a cup of tea or coffee at least once this week.  I need to offer to make one for them soon, or they'll assume I'm a terrible, selfish person.  But what if they all say yes at the same time?  How will I remember who wants tea? Coffee? One sugar?  Two sugar?  None? Strong? Weak?  What if I give them someone else's mug by accident and then they all tell me I'm wrong?  *Gasp* what if no one tells me I'm wrong and I keep making them the wrong thing in the wrong mug forever and they secretly resent me more and more for the rest of my career until they want to stab me in the leg with a teaspoon?  THIS IS SO STRESSFUL!!  

Reality (realit-tea...haw haw)

Noob: "Who wants a drink?"

All of office bar the two people who drink only black coffee: "No, I'm good, thanks."

3.   Novelty makes every nice thing about the job seem AMAZING!

We don't have to work weekends?  Hells yes!  There's a kettle within a few feet of my desk?  Omg! I can eat food at my desk?  Outside of my lunch break? Wow! And I get paid money to come here?  My new colleagues aren't fascist, violent, fire breathing lizards from space? Shit, this job is THE BEST!!  

4.  You spend a good 50% of your brain power trying to rein in the clumsy.

These people don't know that you have a penchant for spilling tea up walls while you're stood still and for tripping over wires that aren't actually there.  For all they know, you're a tight rope walking ballerina in your free time.  Enjoy that while it lasts, and try not to chew on the wrong side of your biro again 'kay?  We don't want another blue moustache.

5.  You feel a sweet, sweet sense of relief that your new place of employment appreciates cake just as much as your previous job.  Thank God.  Thank God for cake. Cake is the best, isn't it? Mmm, cake.  What was I writing about again?  I don't care.  I'm going to find some cake.

Too Old for this Ish

Current status:  Sitting with a bird's nest on top of my head and a cup of tea (cup of tea is on table, not head. Bird's nest not stable enough to stand hot beverages on). Fluffy dressing gown deployed.  Slippers are go.  I am one bad ass father-mucker.   Considering going for a 3 mile shuffle around the block, but the dressing gown might make me look a few chunks short of a stew.  

I can't handle hang overs any more.  I'm nearing my twenty eighth birthday and quickly realising that I'm no longer one of them "yoots" (innit).  Last week, I went to Cyprus to attend a friend's wedding, along with 40-odd other people.  It was a magical day: we laughed, we cried, A gave a best man's speech (he was actually best man. Didn't just bulldoze his way into the speeches for shits and giggles), we were flung around by traditional Cypriot dancers.  Much memories.  Such wedding.

It was the other 6 days that nearly had me crying to my mummy, clutching my poor, pickled liver.  I met some fantastic girls who had also come down for the occasion, but fuck me, they could drink! I thought I liked a bit of the falling down water, but these girls were in another league altogether.  Every night they had us piled into taxis to Ayia Napa for shots, shouts and shisha pipes (also dubious cocktails dispensed from giant, plastic cocks), and every night I had the kind of night where you go home with a sore face from smiling so much (or in my case, a sore face from tripping over my own feet and face planting a board walk.  Classy girl).  But the mornings.  I don't think there was a morning on that holiday where I didn't wake up with some degree of hang over.  They ranged from "Oof, my head's a bit hurty.  I think I'll sleep it off on the sun loungers" to 

"CALL AN AMBULANCE, I THINK THE ALIEN OFF OF ALIENS IS ABOUT TO BURST OUT OF MY STOMACH!!  SHUT THE WINDOWS! BRING ME FOOD.  DON'T LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!"

This enlightening experience has taught me that there are certain things I can't handle as well as I used to be able to as I clatter my way through adulthood.  Here goes, then:

Drinking

See above example.  Every time I go out, I now need at least 3 days to recover.  By no means have I stopped my beloved nights on the tiles, but the recovery time is much, much more grim that it used to be.  As a student, I could take full advantage of the drinks discounts on Student Night in town and then happily trot off to work in Debenhams the next day for my 9am shift.  Sure I had to spend the occasional 5 minutes hiding in the big, walk-in freezer going "Uuuuuunngh!", but it was mostly okay.  Nowadays, my hang overs span 3 phases over as many days:

Phase 1: The Hang Over - this is the part that is traditionally associated with the day after the night before.  Headache.  Stroppiness.  Desire to eat anything and everything at eye level.  Standard.

Phase 2: The Feels - This is like PMS on 'roids.  Am extremely sensitive and prone to getting a bit teary eyed at adverts.  "What do you mean stop crying?  SO many people haven't claimed back their PPI.  They could be owed thousands.  IT'S SO SAD!!"

Phase 3: The ZZZs - Feeling deceptively human, but so mentally drained that I can't remember basic vocabulary and the fact that I can't actually walk through walls.

Trying to be liked

Okay, yeah.  I'm a people pleaser, so part of me will always care at least a bit what people think of me.  I hate the idea of making someone feel bad or letting them down, even if by "letting someone down" I mean being a fraction of a second late to meet them for coffee.  But, I have given up on agonizing over whether people like me, which is an excellent development because it frees up my brain for higher purposes like deciding whether to grill or microwave my bacon or whether I should start wearing more hats.

It's not my business what a person thinks of me, and trying to force friendship on anyone only makes things worse. I'd like to think this lesson came to me because I'm maturing, but I think it has more to do with how cats react when I hug them too hard.

Sitting down without going "oof"

At what age did this become something I do??  I'm only twenty seven and I've already started making grandpa noises.  It's only a matter of time before I start standing in my doorway, shaking my fist and telling the neighbour kids to get off my damn lawn.

Getting up without saying "oof"

Same.

Mess

Much like with the drinking, this one's a bit hypocritical.  Am currently surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of household crap that needs putting away/dusting/pushing under to bed to be ignored until I desperately need the thing and can't remember where the hell I put it so I have to go out and buy a new thing, only to find the old thing when I've already made the purchase of the new thing.  Difference is, mess never used to bother me.  It does now.  I'm hardly a domestic goddess (or anywhere in the hierarchy of domestic deities to be fair), but I can't relax when I'm surrounded by my own crap (as in stuff. I'm messy, not filthy).  I actually clean these days.  And sometimes... don't tell anyone... I enjoy it.

I know.  I know.  It sickens me too.

Welp.  I'll be off then.  Time to think about what I can drink tonight at Mr & Mrs Cyprus' home wedding do that will give me enough pretend confidence to attempt to force friendship on some more people, while I dig through a pile of clothes, looking for a particular pile of clothes within the pile of clothes.  I'd better get up now.

Oof.

 Cyprus, take me back!  I promise I'll behave this time!