(Translation: busy work. Snarky has no idea why she suddenly went German.)

(Huzzah! for making it back onto page one, by the way.)

Snarky had the realization at the end of last week that she had turned into an internet taker, rather than a giver. She was reading blogs and posts and doing the general surfing about she could squeeze into her new schedule, but she wasn't making any contributions. Selfish Snarky!

Needless to say, the thing that is worse than de-Garboing oneself is regaining any sense of flow and light-footedness in one's prose.

Referring to oneself in the third person definitely sandbags that whole "light-footed" effort. Still! Snarky shoulders on.

Work is fantastic. Well. Today it isn't. But that's not too horribly bad considering Snarky has been here for sixty days (she should know, her 60 day review is this Friday). Today has been diminished in fantasticness simply because Snarky is a problem solver and her problem was not. Getting. Solved already! Her addiction is more to the sense of accomplishment rather than the journey, and this particular journey was starting to feel like an endless turn on a traffic circle rather than the euphoric A to B that usually measures her day.

"Big Ben!"

"Parliament!"

"Big Ben!"

... you get the picture.

On top of the slightly stuck feeling Snarky is having today, she's also slightly sick. The atmospheric controls for her office don't, so she and her co-workers have been running between the extremes. Some days they keep their jackets on and wrap scarves around their faces. On these days Snarky looks like a technicolor urchin with her turqoise and rainbow arm warmers and slightly haunted expression. Other days the office becomes a sort of greenhouse/sauna. Heavy, humid air hot enough to warrant short-sleeved t-shirts (yesterday one of the supervisors was wearing what amounted to a nice tank top. In November!). All this wishy-washy weather (interior and exterior) has caused the quick dissemination of Seasonal Crud that runs the gamut from tickling cough to full on phlegm attacks.

Snarky has yet to succumb, but today she feels the closest to "unwell" that she has felt since starting work here.

Ah, but the fantastic stuff! It truly is fantastic. Snarky is surrounded by passionate, funny, educated people. The industry is very different from The Cracker Factory. Snarky gets to work with manufacturing types and artistic types and IT types and sales/marketing types. She gets to type really, really fast, and is apparently the heir apparent to the new CRM system they are trying to implement. What does CRM stand for? Hold on... Snarky needs to look it up.

Customer Relationship Management

Of course! Anyways.. what Snarky knows of the CRM is that she is trying to merge four different databases into the one thing... and also train herself up on the new system in order to train everyone else up on the new system... and also customizing and reporting and data crunching and... um... yeah. Just a little bit of everything. If Snarky was the Office Monkey before, she's more like the Office Gorilla now.

Along with all the newness of being in a different work environment working in a completely different industry, Snarky has the added bonus of tests! Product Recognition Tests, that is. She finally managed to pass Test One (correctly identifying 82 samples) after two tries. Next up: Test Two, which requires the mere memorization of about sixty-some-odd pieces. No big whoop. Test Three (and this is the final test) Snarky hopes is under re-configuration... as most of the test is over soon-to-be-discontinued product. Snarky realized, after failing her first go at Test One, that the last written test she had taken prior was for her driver's license. This definitely felt like a return to the days when one's value hinged on the passing of a test (though to be fair, Snarky would not have been fired had she failed the test again... she would have just been stuck in test limbo, having to re-take the test every two weeks until she got it right).

Beside the failing her first test ever part of this experience, Snarky is really enjoying this whole "learn the product" process. She is starting to feel a bit nervous about her performance review on Friday because it has been so long since she geniunely cared about her job that she just might cock it up. (Snarky has been dying to use that term all week. Sorry if it abruptly offended/shocked anyone. Snarky seems to be good about cocking up the flow of things today. Hee!) (From where did that term come anyway? Is it gun related? Or just more blatantly phallic?)

Snarky hopes things go well and that she can remain the resident office monkey gorilla. Bananas are good.