working girl.

as of thursday, june 9th at 8am, i am officially a working girl.
where do i work, you might ask? 
the answer is complicated. and unconventional for a summer job. but that's ok.
i work in ft. lewis. yes, the army base ft. lewis.
going into it, to be completely honest, i wasn't sure what exactly this job would entail, but i found out on thursday morning.....


let me rewind a little bit. my last final was on wednesday morning from 8-10am. once i was done, i had to pack up my room so i could check out. while my roommate and i were in the middle of packing, (it looked like a tornado....i have photographic evidence to prove it). when you check out, everything that is yours has to be OUT of the room and every surface has to be spotless. right before (literally, like 2 minutes) before my roommate's checkout, the fire alarm went off. this could not have been at a worse time, because if you have ANYTHING out in the hallway, you get a crazy fine from the fire marshall. so we were all freaking out, trying to move everything back into our room and trying to get outside. my roommate is from california and was flying home that day, so she could only take like 30% of her stuff on the plane, which meant the rest of us had to bear the burden of taking the rest of her crap home.
that's a story for another day, though.
so in the midst of packing, driving to the airport, more packing, having the last supper with my friends, lots of tears, and goodbyes, i slowly realized my life was transitioning fast. whether i was ready or not.
i got home around 11pm that night, unpacked, showered, and went to bed. my wake-up call was 6am.
ok, let's be real, i can't even remember the last time i've been up that early. at that point, i would have given ANYTHING - i.e. my right leg or my unborn first child - to have slept in. i am NOT a morning person. i was given a map, some instructions on where to go (which were not helpful considering my terrible sense of direction), my lunch, and out the door i went. i ended up getting lost in a parking lot where the buildings are all have names with letter and number combinations, i.e. "09D40" and such. 
being on the base is like being in a foreign country. you have to go through an inspection gate, the buildings are different, etc. plus i had ABSOLUTELY no idea where i was going. i was supposed to get a parking permit that morning, and i somehow got let in without one. so in fear of being late on my first day, i called our neighbor who works on the base and told me about the job in the first place for assistance. he graciously drove to the parking lot where i was and i followed him to where i was supposed to be. 
the place where i ended up working was....unlike anything i've ever seen before. it was one of the "barracks" and has likely been there since WWII. there are few doors if any, the paint is chipping off the walls,  and the floor rubs off onto your shoes in a lovely rust color. naturally i wore my white tennis shoes on the first day. typical. since the woman i was supposed to meet to find out my job assignment was sick, i worked in the building i just described. 
little did i know that on the second floor is where i was going to be my entire job....i filed some folders, and organized some other folders.
there was a lot of things about this job that were surprising, and one of them is....um, how "laid-back" the people that work there are. they text when they want, listen to music out loud when they want, and use the language that they want. colorful language. it makes sense because it's the army, but still.....it was a shock. granted, it isn't the office environment i had envisioned, so it makes sense. after leaving on thursday, i was in such a rush to leave, plus my lack of sense of direction, i ended up somewhere in steliacoom. i decided i should turn around. i got lost in du pont, which i did not realize was GIGANTIC. add to the forest of trees i was trying to navigate through, and you have one lost and frustrated chandler. finally i made it to the freeway.


on the second floor, there is a large room with about 8 desks in it. what i did on friday was in-processing. which is probably what i'll be doing more than anything. basically, an almost-lieutenant comes in after their "debriefing" from the colonel, sits at your desk, and you grab their folder. in this folder, there are 4 separate packets. i knew from applying to this job that the army loves their paperwork, but that was nothing in comparison to what everyone else has to deal with. EVERYTHING is documented. there is everything from tax forms, to marriage certificates, to orders, to clothing forms, and beyond. my job was to make sure they had all the forms they needed, make copies if needed, make sure they were in order, make sure they all were signed, etc. so the colonel could finally officially sign them off.
i was given instructions on how to do this, and then literally thrown in to the wolves. 
the thing is, they do the debriefing in groups. so you'll have a group of like 10 people to process, and after that's done, crickets. there is literally nothing else to do. so there are times of intenseness and then the complete opposite within minutes of each other, which i was not expecting. this is when the texting, music, and smoking breaks come into play. i'll save my co-workers for another post, because this is already excruciatingly long.


i also wasn't aware going into this job that i would have to work on the weekends....i just thought it was an 8-5 M-F job. wrong. when i told the woman in charge that, she quickly responded that "this is a 7 day a week operation." she gave me today off, but i get the pleasure of being there on a sunday morning at 8am tomorrow. how joyous. 
yesterday, i was so overwhelmed that i wouldn't have a summer, and i would waste it working. which i still feel like a little bit. but it's money, right?


today i am going to unpack, melt my brain a little bit with some trashy TV, and enjoy not working....until tomorrow. i have already begun to enjoy my free time SO much more now that i realize it's a rare commodity. i decided that i want to stay in college forever. my brother told me to do the same and to never graduate. now i understand why he said that. at least i know now that this is something i DO NOT want to do for the rest of my life. the 8-5 days on the other hand is something i'll just have to get used to. for the rest of my life.


if you read all of this, or even half, i congratulate you. have a wonderful rest of your saturday! i know i will.