Day 127 - Have a Full Day Orientation for a Job

Date: May 13th, 2010

I've had a bunch of different kinds of jobs before, but for the most part, training consisted of pointing me in the direction of a computer or cash register and telling me not to mess up.  Oh, and filling out I-9s.  I-9s are the bane of my existence.  I'm not for draconian or Orwellian governmental programs, for the most part, but man would jobs be easier if I just had a little scannable chip in my hand.  Just saying.

I was mostly worried before work started that having a full day of orientation would get boring.  Not that the job would be boring.  I've been giddy-over-the-moon since I got hired.  More that being bombarded with information about all things office-related would get tiring after a while.  The thing about an orientation is that you're not really doing anything affirmative.  Your job for the day is to become a sponge and soak up the sticky, sugary spill that is your summer internship.

It went a lot faster and was a lot more engaging than I expected it to be.  I think what I wasn't realizing about the job was that there really, genuinely was a full day's worth of information that we needed to get started.  There is a computerized case system, a series of rules and procedures required for dealing with callers, several laws concerning what we can and can't say to people and forms for just about everything.  Realizing how important the information was made the day fly by.  I ended up rereading the orientation packet a few times over the weekend to try and commit more stuff to memory. 

It was a bit different from my other jobs in that the orientation felt more necessary.  Don't get me wrong - I loved my other jobs.  The companies I interned for as an undergrad were both fantastic.  However, because there weren't, ya know, specific laws and whatnot, that I had to know before starting, the only thing I had to orient to was the break room.  Knowing that there are things that I absolutely must know how to do properly is a little daunting, but its definitely better than, you know, not knowing until after you mess up.  By the time orientation was over, instead of being bored, I was incredibly excited for work on Monday.  I was pumped.