Breaking The Law - Part One

The first day on the new gig was cool... but I wouldn't be me if something strange didn't happen. At least it wasn't my fault this time.

I got there at 10:00am as requested only to find out that my lady manager J had called out due to a sudden asthma attack. Since she would be the one to train me, I wouldn't be needed until tomorrow. My future female cube-mate V said that left a message with the agency. I would have probably been underground by then, anyway. Still, I was perhaps a touch miffed that my recruiter hadn't at least attempted to leave a message with me. But when I called him to see about getting compensated for some of my time, he said he had not heard anything about the situation. But he apologized profusely and offered to pay me two hours' travel time at my assignment rate.

I then thought it might be a good idea to go pick up a timesheet from the agency and meet my recruiter. (I was referred to him by another branch office where I had already registered.) He suggested that I take the train for what would be a eight-minute ride. Instead, I decided to take advantage of a rare mild and sunny day and instead chose to walk. After a leisurely half-hour stroll, I entered the office only to have my recruiter tell me that my manager made it in after all and that I was welcome to come in today if I wanted.

Oh what the heck, I didn't have anything else planned so why not! :)

As it was now 11:30, I did ask for some time to eat my lunch before starting back up there which was granted without a problem. Unfortunately I ended up eating the "brown-bagger" on a windy bench as there was no park near enough and my legs, having also spent a half-hour on the recumbent bike this morning, were saying no mas. After some recovery time, I hopped on the Metro and finally started my workday.

The manager J was definitely happy to see me. It was a nice change of pace from Bipolar who, in retrospect, didn't even greet me with a smile when we first met. Apparently quite a mess was created by the person who previously held her position, so I was there to help her clean it up before the arrival of the auditors in two weeks. One of my biggest selling points reportedly was my experience on their accounting software which I had used for three years at my last permanent gig. J said that her knowledge of that software was pretty limited. Although it took me a few moments to get back to speed, I started paying dividends already when I showed J an easier way to find certain information without printing out extraneous amounts of paper. She was very happy about that. I also was able to point out some odd items on the bank account I was reconciling. So all in all, it was a good day. I managed a "three-fer": got some exercise, saw some sights and did some work... getting paid for it all the while! :)