I should have known that I was going to have stories to tell about working on Government Contracts my first day at work. Silly me, I thought that the craziness would end after my interview.
My first day of work started with a mound of paperwork to fill out, getting finger printed and the orientation. Originally, the orientation was a week long and they managed to condense the program to half a day to save time. Well, I thought, at least I will not fall asleep. In the orientation, I was grouped with other Technical Writers and Editors, which I don't always like, because some of the people in my field are a little odd, or should I say more odd than I am. A lot of people who work with Technical Writers know it is true, but will not admit it.
Well, I sat down next to a Writer who was going to work in the Quality Department. In fact, he was going to be one of the writers who would review and edit my work. The first thing that I noticed was that he was nervous and kind of fidgety. I asked if he was OK, and he stated that he was fine. He told me that he was a lawyer, but he found that field to be too stressful for him, so he switched to Technical Editing. and this was his first assignment. I sat down, smiled and wished him luck on the project. Well, during the orientation, the former lawyer continued to rock back and forth while slowly pushing the the table away from us. He would continue to rock and push until the table was almost out of reach and then he would pull the table back towards us and start the same rocking and pushing all over again. He continued this action for the next 5 hours. If being a Technical Editor made him this nervous, I would have been scared to have him as a lawyer. I could easily see his nervous tics making a client feel unsure or nervous as well. I wish I could say that he was the only interesting character that I encountered, but he was one of many.
No comments:
Post a Comment