The easiest way to do this is to go over my interactions by day and with each person individually from my new job...
Monday was the first day and all the summer hires were in the same room to begin with. We were separated into two groups, which I later identified as professional office type workers versus the stupid college kids. I was originally in the first group, but because of a doctors appointment I had to switch. The kids in this group were working in places like outdoor rec, the gym and the youth center and they were barely able to fill out their own paperwork. They were told to get help from their parents before hand, yet in one instance, someone seriously tried to put their shortened name instead of their full name. (That would be like me filling out my I-9 using Jessi instead of Jessica.) Since I wasn't in the same group as them, I did the paperwork at the and then went to meet with my new supervisor.
I soon found out that my new supervisor was not in the office on Monday. She got called for jury duty. I met an older woman who I assumed to be the right hand man of the supervisor. She answers the main phone number at least. I stopped in and basically said "Hey, nice to meet you, see you tomorrow!" We chatted a bit and after her declaration of how short handed they are, I mentioned that I had been applying for all sorts of jobs via the usajobs website and they should let me know if they have official openings because it would be awesome to work there if I was going to already have the experience. She sort of gave me a bitter vibe after that and later included a comment along the lines of "___ might be the supervisor, but I've been here the longest..." I brushed it off and went on to finish the rest of my paperwork. I discovered at the next stop that I would not be able to get my ID card, the one that lets me on the computers, until Friday. The afternoon was filled with a briefing about the importance of maintaining an equal opportunity work environment. No thug speak, racial slang terms or sexual harassment. Got it.
Tuesday came early, but I got to work on time. I came in to discover that my supervisor was still not done with jury duty and that they didn't realize that I wouldn't have an ID yet. Older lady introduced to me to the only two active military personnel in the office and then was on crazy mode with the supervisor being gone and a lingering newspaper deadline. I hang out in there waiting for something to do. she lets me double check the spelling and alphabetization of the June promotions list before she sends it to press. She mentions a giant book I need to read, but decided to take me down the hall to meet everyone else.
First, there was the graphics girl. She seemed pretty cool and I sat in on them recording the news thing. I bumped into one of the lights while turning around and moved it back where they had it. When they fired up the rest of the lights for the actual recording, I mentioned something about it being cool that they backlit the "anchor" to help with the green screen and the shadowing issues. I happily pressed the arrow buttons on the slideshow and then we went into the room to edit.
This is where I met the media guy. I'm really not sure what he does besides update the local access station and rip vhs tapes onto dvd for the guys in the missile field. The news thing is really new, so I guess he does part of that now too. Anyway, they get the file all captured from the tape and the graphics girl shows me this wicked cool thing with the green screen. It's literally like maybe five clicks and POW you've got your person standing in a makeshift newsroom. While that's saving, a long process I guess, the graphics chick goes off and checks her facebook on what I can only assume is not a computer on government lockdown. The media guy and me are chatting while he's looking at the weather and news on another one of the computers I also assume is not on hardcore government lockdown. I tell her when it's done and she slaps it into Premier, which being an Adobe product I am familiar with, is like my fifth child, only proceeded by the other Adobe programs, which I can use in my sleep, and my actual child. She is editing stuff; splicing the footage in between the existing stories already edited by the media guy. I'm watching and sort of repeating stuff that she's doing in a verbal note style and then, once I've seen it, saying it out loud as she's doing it to sort of reinforce. I'm not GREAT at Premier, so I'm liking seeing her mess with it. The only better way for me to learn would be to actually get to DO it, but I'm not taking the mouse from her on my first day of course! At one point in time, she has an issue with something she added not rendering and the media guy was all "huh that's weird". I see what the problem is, the beginning marker along the top got moved to the middle of the segment somehow, so I say "I'm pretty sure if you move that arrow in the gray bar back it should work." It does, she continues muttering something about how it happened. I say nothing, but I had saw her move the marker right before the rendering issue. Watching them gets sort of boring after I've seen them do the same 12 things over and over; copy, paste, increase volume, decrease volume, add cgi name banners, repeat.
I wander out back to the graphics room to go find the other graphics guy. He's older and apparently used to be like a legit illustrator FOR the Air Force. We talk about computer stuff and the giant equipment all over the room. I notice his Prismacolor markers and we get to talking about the art stuff we've done. He has suspiciously got his personal files all over the government computer and prints of his work stashed all over the work area, but he's really damn good and I think we hit it off nicely.
Lunch happened, I checked in with older lady, she gave me a giant book to read, so I return to the graphics guy's desk to read it A guy came in to get a copy of his group's shield or something and so the graphics guy opened it up and was all "ugh" because it was an Illustrator file and he wasn't able to click on the text to fix it. We had discussed earlier about how he was unfamiliar with Illustrator, being taught on Corel, so I was like "Oh, hey! I know how that works," and he let me have the mouse. Shit was grouped funny and a font didn't show up right, so I had to get into the direct selection tool, but I fixed it in like a minute. He saved out the file in the format the guy needed and sent it off. I went back to reading the giant book and he was messing with the file some more in Illustrator. I looked up and said something about it and he was talking about how Corel had a thing where you could just smooth out the lines. I showed him where the one in Illustrator was, but it didn't do it well. He mentioned it would probably be easier to just redraw it and I showed him my favorite tool, the pencil tool. He made a comment about how it was a lot smoother and he messed around with it for a bit more and I went back to the book.
Graphics guy leaves, so I go linger over graphics chick. She's not doing anything worth watching, so I read more. I get finished with the giant book and go wander over to the photo guy. I learn there are usually two, but the other guy is gone because he's in the guard and they are doing a thing this week. He's got some pictures lying out and I ask if I can use the slidey paper cutter and help him. He shows me the white gloves and the gist of the specifics of the cropping that needs to be done and I go to town. He says there will be lots more tomorrow and I tell him I'll be there. Day ends and I'm feeling pretty good.
This morning I had to take Lilah to daycare, so I was later than I would have liked to have been. I walk up to the building and someone is coming in behind me that I don't recognize. I put my stuff in the photo guys' room and go take a peek to see who it is. I discover it's the supervisor, who seems pretty cool. She talks about how busy her morning is and how she wants to get with me to sit down and talk. Not being at work for two days when important crap is going down is obviously the main thing on her mind and I totally get that. She wants me to reread the web part of the giant book, because I "couldn't have possibly read it all already" and "just observe" because they "have been doing this for years" which is frustrating, but I don't argue. I tell her about my doctor appointment and she says awesome and goes and does her supervisor thing.
First, I linger behind the photo guy. I ask what he's working on and discover it is some images for a training powerpoint. He took them all on a tripod so they don't change from slide to slide but has to remove a guy's hand from them. They are sort of taken from an angle, but shows me this cool lens filter that basically lets you skew with precision. I'm pretty much in awe. He stops for a sec and is talking about cropping them all to the same size and I suggest putting them all in layers inside one file, cropping that, turning a layer on one at a time and saving the files with the same names as the ones he started with. I tell him that's how I did my hacky sacks and some other things that needed to remain the same size and he's like "Yeah, I could do it like that." So I'm feeling pretty good, but he leaves for a meeting soon after.
Next, I go linger behind the graphics guy. He shows me this wicked cool thing in Photoshop called content aware scaling, we watch a tutorial on it and then and we talk about this portrait program he found that he really likes. Enter my previous blog post here. A bit later, we got into talking about house renovations too and before I knew it, it was time for my doc appointment.
I take a long lunch because I needed some time to vent. I got the impression that the old lady and the graphics chick didn't really like me from the interactions with them so far and it sort of seemed like they might have thought I was telling them what to do. I somehow KNEW this was going to be a thing because of the way the supervisor spoke to me that morning, but I tried to blow it off.
I get back and photo guy has a pile more pictures to trim, so I've got plenty to do and I'm pretty jacked about that. He shows me how to put the finished things up on the desk when they are awaiting pick up, he shows me how they fill out and file the work orders and then he starts doing his paperwork part of said work orders and lets me plug them into their tracking spreadsheet. I feel exceptionally productive and much better about the day. Supervisor comes in and is all "Oh, super!" because I found something to do and then she asks if I have a minute.
She apologized for not being able to get with me earlier, but we both know it's been chaotic. Then she tells me that some people have come to her with some concerns and she suggests I have gotten off on a bad foot. I apparently told the older lady that I was expecting a job this fall there from of this internship. Another specific complaint was that I told someone (graphics chick I assume) where to put the lighting for the recording of the news thing. She expressed concern in the exact same thing I was worried about; me telling them how to do their jobs. Basically, its the same problems I have ran into before. I have a SEVERE problem not doing anything and just sitting back collecting a paycheck, not to mention a longstanding distaste for the inevitable slew of catty females talking behind people's backs. Even though I knew this was sort of impending, it made me very upset. She reassured me that she had not really seen what the other people were talking about and that was why she wanted to talk to me about it.
I explained that the older lady just seemed bitter and stressed out, understandable when she was playing boss for the last two days and with a newspaper deadline, so I tried to stay out of her hair and that all I had said about a job was that I would be very interested if their shorthandedness meant there was an opening beyond that of this summer thing. I told her I really didn't know how I could have been telling them where to put lights, but apologized for the misunderstanding. I told her that I am a bigtime hands on learner and also very verbal, so I wasn't trying to tell people how to to their job, but I could see where misinterpretation could have been conceived. I told her that while I understand they operate in the way that they do and they have the experience that they do, I sort of felt like they were treating me like a stupid college kid that was hired on to shred papers all summer. She assured me that they knew I had the knowledge and the skills to do lots of the things they do in that office and that's why they picked me, but didn't want this drama to affect the working environment. I felt like telling her that it was too damn late for that, but I rephrased my thoughts into saying that it was like she was saying "Oh, everyone hates you after only your first day, and by the way nice to meet you." She said that it wasn't like that at all, but since people came to her it was her job to ask me about it and that she thinks maybe my eagerness about the job might have gotten me ahead of myself and taken others aback a little. I also told her that I felt a little upset when she said I couldn't have possibly read the giant book already, which she apologized for and said that it makes sense I could have read it all since I didn't have an ID or anything else to do. She added that I probably had read more of it than her now. After that, she said if I have anything to say or ask while in observation mode to maybe think about how to phrase it to not step on any toes and that if I had any concerns to come to her.
So the plan is that tomorrow is a new day. My plan is to win them all back with an apology for "getting ahead of myself" and an assortment delectable baked goods.
