Last night was rough

I'd gotten home from the second day at the new gig where I was feeling torn between "really proud of myself" and "really hating myself" for the exceeding expectations/not even coming close "employee review" I've been giving myself.

Here's the thing about that: Everybody knows that this is my First. Real. Week. at the new job, and unless they tell me what they want me to be doing all day, I'm only going to really work on the items that I actually know how to do.  In the meantime, I am already an Admin Extraordinaire, who happens to like dressing up without doing any overt makeup- or jewelry-wearing. My hair's in a really awkward "growing out" phase where I can either wear it down, or spray the hell out of it in the hopes that it'll last the day in a clip. I work in a dance studio, hello. If I wear it in a clip, it Ain't. Staying. There.

So on Thursday, a day I'd worn a nice sweater and pants, only to discover that that was the day the bosses wanted to do the staff holiday photos (i.e. wear Red or Green), I also discovered that on Fridays and Saturdays, I'm expected to "glam it up" (dresses, hair and makeup over-the-top, lots of shiny jewelry)... so I stressed about finding a suitable "costume" for Friday's theme party ("Geeks and Dweebs") as well as making the rest of me "fit" the requirements. Didn't sleep too well Thursday night.

Come Friday, I start the day early so I can 1. buy more makeup (after getting a free makeover in the mall - thank God for holiday hours!) and 2. buy a TARDIS dress (that I think I'll end up returning - for reasons) and 3. make it to work on time, appropriately attired, but for the dance shoes that I left behind in favor of a standard nice heel.

None of the staff present on Friday had a clue about Doctor Who. The extent of their geekiness went to Star Wars, which I'm really not that "into". Quite a few of the students, however, made sufficient comments to redeem my faith in the dweebs of the world.

By the party at the end of the day, I'd made some real progress doing things I knew how to do, and self-teaching through some new tasks (like posting a blog post on behalf of the big boss in Wordpress, which is not as easy as Blogger). Yay. Success. Exceeding the learning curve, etc. However, I'd run out of things that I could do steadily, throughout the party, so I kept finding myself dancing (near the front desk). I felt a little chastised, though, after the party, when I hadn't made any progress on the last major task I'd been given, because, to be fair to me, I'd not been given any real direction or expectations to meet, and I'd been left to my own devices. If you ever wonder what "leaving ME to my own devices" means, I'll tell you. I default to singing and dancing.

So we completed a few things together, and I went home. As I was walking in the door, I was mentally beating myself up for not being the PERFECT admin at the end of one week, but also, because I'd danced and worked all day in a standard high heel, my feet started cramping. Just a little, just one foot or the other. Then I went to bed, and it got worse. Then I'd actually fall asleep, and a new cramp would come on. At some point, my only recourse was to stand on the cramping foot, next to the bed, which led me to the bathroom, where I got nauseous and dizzy while emptying my bladder and trying to make the cramping stop. I ended up getting up pretty early this morning, and lay in a hot tub for about an hour, to see if I could catnap my way through the morning. <side note - what the hell am I still doing up?>

Left early so I wouldn't have to feel rushed to get to work. Shopped at a huge Trader Joe's near work that still doesn't manage to carry any tonic water. Returned some cosmetics to Macy's. Bought a new eyeliner cartridge for my refillable eyeliner pen. Tried on shapewear and found something I could be happy with, in my short, snug, lace dress... that didn't match the color theme of today's party, because, once again, they all forget to tell me what the code on the calendar meant... had a pretty decent day of work, and when my meal break rolled around, it was time for tonight's dance party. I wore dance shoes all day. I danced my butt off. It was great. Then I scarfed my soup and went back to work, and there was never a task I didn't know how to do. I demonstrated a little "Extraordinaire" by reformatting the pages for holiday card mailing labels so that they'd all fit in one file, formatted for the appropriate labels, rather than having to "guess" about things like columns and margins. I changed all of the "(city) ,CA" errors to "(city), CA" which was such an easy thing, how does ANY admin let that shit slip through? Got walked/jogged/trotted/run through the weekly reports process, and my boss apologized for "1st week, and I'm makin' ya work overtime"... but she was still there, too.  And when I finally left just past ten, (an hour late), she decided that I should start my "half-hour before opening" shift, rather than sticking to my "15-minutes before" guideline of this week.

So my employee performance review: I'm doing okay. I got nothing to worry about. Ask me in a week! Doesn't mean I'm not currently ready to sleep. Ah, sleep. I sure hope the foot cramps don't try to take up residence for a second day!