First Day Jitters

[prosodic]

Today went fine on the phone...better than I had expected. One client was really pissy with me, because I guess he keeps getting handed off to different payroll specialists, and he swore and made pretty snarky comments. But I tried not to take it personally. I only made one slight faux pas when calling a customer, so overall the day wasn't too bad.

I was flooded with emails from my Rochester classmates though. Wow. I just sat and watched them pop into my inbox every few seconds. I was particularly busy between 9-10 am and the team leader was sitting with me (although she wasn't listening to my calls), and she commented on the number of emails I was getting.

Getting those first few calls under my belt was all I needed. I pretty much sailed through the rest of the day. My first call was a one person payroll, so how could I screw that up?

Anyway, I am pleased to say that Reece's adoption is moving forward. We agreed to take her to doggie daycare...Petsmart has a program and it's near both our offices. It's expensive, but we can afford it (and it's the cheapest option of all the doggie daycares we looked at). And Lance gets a raise next month. It's just that it costs as much as child daycare, but as she gets older, she'll need it less and less. Petsmart's program gets dogs gradually accustomed to spending time alone. She'll start at half hour intervals and work her way up.

Right now, they are checking references. My mom, Lance's sister, and our friends Ruby and Robb are references for us, so I don't anticipate any problems. We're golden.

For those who haven't yet seen her superlative cuteness and turned into a puddle of goo, here she is, without further ado...



That look is going to undo me. Every time she gives me that look, I'll want to give her anything she wants. It's going to be hard to resist that face.

Anyway, on the domestic side of life, I made Linguini Carbonara for dinner today, or a reasonable facsimile. It's not authentic, because it doesn't have egg in it. But a mixture of milk and sour cream gives it its creamy consistency. It was really tasty and very easy to make. Carbonara is my favorite Italian dish, and I'm completely bummed that no Italian restaurant in the US makes it (that I know of anyway...too paranoid about partially cooked eggs). It was almost always what I ordered at any Italian restaurant in Europe.

Also, we are having a breakfast potluck at work on Thursday...our team is, not the entire office. I offered to bring muffins, and I have 3 boxes of quick bread/muffin mix in the pantry. But for something like this, I feel like I should make them from scratch.

If so, I believe I'll be making the recipe that navygreen posted for Banana Crumb Muffins.

Thursday is a great day to have the potluck. I have ONE PHONE CALL scheduled for the entire day. Seriously. And it's at 2 pm. That could change, because sometimes clients aren't ready at their scheduled time and I might push them back a day. But still...Thursday is going to be really easy.

I have other things I want to post. I have pictures from Niagara Falls that I probably need to upload from my camera. Maybe I should do that right now. I just haven't been in a place emotionally where writing my travel blog and taking care of the photos have been a big priority. But I promised to email photos to my travel companions in Niagara, so I better do it. Once we bring Reece home, I'll be too busy.

Comments

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not going to say much about the salary. I'm getting paid one of the higher starting wages...I think it's due to the high cost of living here in Seattle. But raises are pretty frequent and generous as you complete each level to work your way up to senior level. But I'm just talking about the Payroll Specialist position.

I think the benefits are pretty sweet. I just don't need most of them because I have Lance's health, dental and life insurance.