Update from the governmental front, as it were

Monday was my first day at the temp job. It's a city department but I can't say which, just in case, ya know. What I can say, legitimately, now, "good enough for government work!".

First off it's a locked building.  What I mean is that you need a key to go up in the elevator, which of course as temps we don't have access to such a thing.  Makes going out to lunch a bit of an adventure.

The work itself is kind of depressing because it's processing applications of folks requesting services (that's about all I can say about the type).  It means that everyone's application shows them
living on air just about which is far from the high life.  Most are single women headed households with dependents.  Some of these women are so young and have SO many children.  About the most amusing thing about these files are the names.  Remember last summer when I was
working at Stars R Us and I posted some names?  Well let me tell you that place had nothing on these people.  I may have to do a whole entry that is a rift on Baby's Named a Bad Bad Thing.

There are four of us in the square of cubicles, in a huge otherwise empty room that is on the way to the break room, so there is a lot of foot traffic going on behind our backs. The inner corners of all of our unit point to the middle.  On Monday  was just three of us as the other woman was out sick.  Michael (no real names will be used) had been here since Thursday so he helped Joshua and I get our bearings as it was our first day.  Michael is a nice guy, a bit of a nerd but very smart and a touch of a sharp wit. Joshua is a young'un.  Really, he's 20 and from a small town in the country out here.  He has one of those accents where they pronounce insurance, IN-shurance, like two separate words "In" and "surance".  It's kinda cute.  Joshua thinks he knows a lot more than he does, but he isn't dumb by any means.  He just has the "I know a lot already, don't need you to tell me x" that most us had a touch of at that age.  

By the end of the day my brain is tired and my eyes felt like they are bleeding.  I did leave the building for lunch which was a good move but I will never get another egg salad sub from Subby's again. Not a pleasant experience.  Tuesday all four of us are in and surprise, surprise the other women temp is from my  neighborhood and I know her.  On one hand it was cool thing, on the other it was a bit unsettling.  Living here is like being in the land of three degrees of separation, on a good day. There was a little more chattering throughout the day which helped. The other thing that helped enormously was TGF brought home supplies Monday so I could download my favorite podcast.  Okay it's the only one I listen to but I love it.  I was able get through two entries that day and during that time it was almost like being somewhere else. Yesterday we had all sorts of conversation and it never broke out in fisticuffs. We covered the death penalty, abortion, gay marriage, child abuse, and I cannot remember what all else.  At one point it fell quiet so I listened to a podcast.  When I unplugged the topic was religion. Joshua asked me what I thought about christianity. I replied that it was a form of religion that many people found comfort it and helped them structure their life.  He was miffed as that wasn't the answer he was looking for but I pointed out that his question was rather broad and perhaps if he could narrow the topic a bit he might get a personal answer, since I sensed that was what he was looking for based on the conversation I came in on.  Once he did that I assured him that I did not look to christianity for comfort but found it in another form of spiritual beliefs.There were many, many delightful little tidbits like that but I barely have a memory of them as it's the next afternoon and I am drafting this post as an email since I have no access to blogger, twitter, ravelry, or facebook from this vacuum of cultural referencing called work.   More later, I hope.