Day 1

A friend asks me how my first day at work has gone.

The only way I can describe my first day is how I imagine it would be to attend a school in the wrong side of town.

Before I started on the first day, I received a group email for all the new starters. Being curious about who I would be working with, I examined the list of email addresses for any clues. One of the email addresses was 'psychochick@...' On the morning of the first day, it quickly became apparent who psycho chick was. She was covered head to toe in the type of tattoos that I had heard were only available in prisons.  There were bruises on her knuckles and love bites on her neck, which she proudly displayed with her hair tied back.

During the first day of training everyone was eager to create a good first impression. There was a sea of constantly nodding heads and nervous smiles. Psychochick was confident that her first impression was not necessary. She was the first of the group to speak out, asking the boss to repeat himself. Was she being consciences? Before The Manager had a chance to finish his thought she answers for him, 'Sorry, I wasn't paying attention there'.

The Manager, still stinging from the morning’s interruption half-jokingly asks Psychochick if she had listened to anything he had said all day. 'Fuck off', she replies. The Manager stops chuckling. Now he has realised who had the Pyschochick@ email address and his face tells the room that he is definitely regretting the decision to not judge a person by their email address. Throughout the course of the day Psychochick told him to fuck off twice.

As an ice breaker all of the new starters had to play a game to get to know each other. The game was 4 truths and a lie. In groups of 5 people we elect one person from the group to tell a lie about themselves to the entire group while the remaining 4 of us tell a fact that is true about ourselves.  People raise their hands when they think they hear the lie. Psychochick@ was in my group. She elected herself to tell the lie.

I tell everyone that I can speak a bit of Guaraní, an Amazonian language. 5 people raise their hands. A smart, professional looking man tells the group that he used to have long blond hair. 3 people raise their hands. Psychochick's side-kick tells the group something so boring I can't remember it. It was something along the lines of 'I live near a supermarket'. 4 people raise their hands. Crazy Old Woman says that she's abseiled down a really tall building. 6 people raise their hands. Psychochick@ says that she went to juvenile prison. Two people out of a forty person group raised their hands.

Lunch was served at the office canteen. I had been fighting a cold all day and thought a soup would be a perfect remedy.  Soup of the day was tomato. Nutritious, I thought. I receive a plastic cup of pink water with suspicious red floaters.

The manager announced today that as of New Year, he no longer takes drugs. New Year was 3 weeks ago. He has been a manager here for 3 years.

I was sat next to Crazy Old Lady today. She got up from her chair unannounced during the classroom style training talks to stare out of the window. After staring into the grey building opposite the window for a few minutes, she sat back down. This happened every half an hour. During the intervals that was sat in her chair she broke into an opera style hum. The melodies became louder and more extravagant. I don’t think she realised she was making a noise. I don't think she realised she had stood up to look out of the window.

I do not think it is dramatic of me to say that I fear for my life in this place. I am considering putting forward the suggestion to top management of having airport style security installed by the entrance.

In response to my friend’s question; work was good, thanks. It's better than cleaning skid marks from toilets in hotel rooms.

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