Vive la difference

What a difference a nay makes. The first two weeks at my new half-time job have been discombobulating and alienating. The job itself seems so amorphous and it's lonely there. I work at the hospital and most of the offices surrounding me are filled with doctors; this means that, unlike the situation I have with my coworkers at what used to be my full-time job and is now a half-time job, I can't very well drop in and chat about Banana Guards (even though they were invented by a trio of doctors) or bemoan the fact that I don't work at a place where you can say “motherfucker” to anyone and everyone like they do where Dexter works. On the days I would go to what used to be my full-time job and is now a half-time job, it felt like home. Someone suggested I quit my new half-time job and go back to what used to be my full-time job. I was tempted. But a week ago Thursday, while at my new half-time job, I got an email from my employer at what used to be my full-time job. I learned that a proposal that for over two years we've been trying to get funded, didn't. My psychological well-being had a blow-out. Not only did that mean that I couldn't quit my amorphous and lonely new half-time job and go back and make what used to be my full-time job full-time again, but that job probably will be no job in a year. My new half-time job has limited funding as well, and will also become no job in two years. Helen's theorem states that no job=no money=poverty. I really don't want my golden years to become iron years through the alchemy of unemployment. I went home, deflated.

Last Wednesday at my amorphous and lonely new half-time job, I went to yet another meeting. There are lots of meetings at this new half-time job and they add to the general amorphousness, if that's a word (even if it's not, the concept will do). I'm used to meetings that have an agenda, and none of these do. They wander, mostly aimlessly, which does nothing to help me settle in. This meeting was preceded by a brief tour of the person's lab, and then we went to his office. I saw something in a jar on the shelf. What is that? I asked (oblivious to the fact that asking a gastroenterologist about the contents of their specimen jars might open something worse than a can of tapeworms). That was removed from a girl who was swallowing her hair. It filled her entire stomach. It was crawling with bacteria and prevented her from eating. I leaned forward to take a closer look at the stomach-shaped hairball. That was when I realized that, even if it's relatively short-lived, my new half-time job might be very interesting. I could feel myself slowly inflating with excitement, and now I actually look forward to going to my new half-time job. What a difference a hairball makes.