new job: the skinny

* things have been going very well so far. for now, it's still a bit slow (in terms of the amount work i actually have to do), but my day-to-day tasks have been varied, and different dormant muscles have begun to be tapped. feeling them limber up again has been nice.

* my desk still resembles a stark, barren cubicle. it's got nuthin' but the iMac, the phone and an "in" tray. i have no tape, no stapler, no notepads, no pen cup, and certainly nothing on the walls because i have nothing with which to affix stuff. creativity-wise, it's not a particularly inspiring environment, so i'll have to work on adding some colour and personality. for now, i've placed a tiny kinder surprise toy of a bumble bee with a flower on its head in front of the keyboard.

* also: the desk surface itself was gross and dirty when i first arrived. i have wiped it down twice and been amazed at the level of grime that had obviously accumulated. ew.

* i'm using inDesign for the first time, and only on the most rudimentary of levels (i basically know how to do three things), but it's fun.

* if i'm lucky, i might get my own office email address so i can stop sending and receiving work emails via yahoo.

* whenever i have to pee, i have to walk past our floor's reception desk to get to the washroom. i drink a lot of water and, thus, i pee frequently. i wonder what the receptionists think when they see me going back and forth so often.

* cutting overset is, thus far, my favourite thing to do. it essentially means trimming a story so that it fits into the allotted page(s). sometimes, cutting one word shifts all the copy so that your overset is gone; other times, it's like a little game as i hunt and peck words and punctuation and watch the overset get smaller one letter at a time. like reverse tetris.

* the compound -- and it really is such a massive complex that it deserves that nickname -- has its own tim horton's inside, as well as a dry cleaners, a convenience store and a surprisingly robust cafeteria. there's even a day-by-day weekly calendar posted each monday, listing all the food items that will be available each of day that week at all of the various food stations (there's about ten). i only discovered this today and, sadly, found out too late that i missed this morning's berry-infused-pancakes breakfast.

* there's a chance this job might last longer than five weeks.

* tonight, just before i left, my editor came to my desk to thank me. he said even though i'm still spending a lot of time waiting around for stuff to do, my presence is valuable and he thinks i'm doing a great job. it's amazing how meaningful something as simple as that can be, and it was a really wonderful way to end day four.