In the words of Wayne Campbell, “I’ve had plenty of joe-jobs, nothing I’d call a career. Let me put it this way: I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets.”
Similar to Campbell’s, my work life is like a rainbow — made of many layers, some prettier than others.
My first job ever was as a receptionist at a local discount hair salon. My title read “receptionist,” but my only real purpose was to sweep up customers’ hair within two minutes of it hitting the floor. They timed me. After three weeks, I moved onto an ice cream parlor.
Being an ice cream scooper was glorious. But mint chocolate chip doesn’t pay the bills, so I picked up another job as a soccer coach.
And soccer season doesn’t last forever, so I got a job at a restaurant where the required attire was a denim oxford shirt and clip-on tie. When my boss scolded me for wearing a crooked tie and giving a lackluster performance in a “happy birthday” sing-a-long to a young diner within the first week, I could swallow my pride no longer, so I quit.
Since then, I’ve moved on to babysitting and office gigs to keep the cash rolling in.
Each job I’ve had has been different, but they all have one thing in common: the first day experience.
The second part of Dublin’s study abroad program involves an internship, and after a few interviews, I scored an internship at a music magazine. Working at such a place seemed right up my alley: tunes, writing, getting one step closer to meeting and marrying an old musician and inheriting his yummy fortune. I was 100 percent excited — until I remembered that with each new job comes a first day.
And I don’t like first days.
Nevertheless, on Monday, I added another “Day One on the job” to that resume we call life.
The anxiety I feel on the first day of a new job turns my brain into scrambled eggs. The more I try to act normal and stay calm, the more frazzled, forgetful and flaky I get. I still get nervous about it, even after experiencing quite a few since my mid-teenage years.
This internship isn’t at a salon or restaurant, though, and it’s definitely not in my hometown. This is “real-world” stuff. It is real-world stuff in a different part of the world that is still very real.
I arrived about 40 minutes early because I nervously calculated that the ride into town, with rush-hour traffic, would take the same amount of time as driving to the Czech Republic. During a pre-internship meeting, our advisers had told us that the Irish are not huge fans of time, and it’s not cool to arrive early. I got caught in a Dublin downpour while wasting time before 10 a.m., and therefore looked like hell when I arrived, but thought that was at least better than being the American loser who arrived way too early.
Instead, I was the American loser who forgets simple things like what school she attends here and her last name. My reaction to every question was filled with an outrageous number of “umms” and awkward silences.
Then there were the introductions. No — please no — not the introductions. I’m “not good with names,” or so I claim, instead of admitting that I just don’t really pay attention. Many of the names people told me were Irish, so I couldn’t even write them down to memorize them because I didn’t know how to spell them. I had to use a pitiful trick of the past to speak with people: When I had to ask a question or strike up conversations, I walked in the general direction of the person I needed to talk to, and casually stopping at his or her desk on the stroll back, thus avoiding the need to say names aloud. Pathetic? Slightly, but a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.
Another thing a gal’s gotta do is have a crush on the cute guy in the office. It was hard enough to form coherent sentences in my first-impression nervousness with everyone else in the department, never mind the one who has all the ingredients of a stud muffin. When he asked me how I was doing, I was too distracted to listen and thought he said what’s up, so I said “Nothing, you?” at which he giggled and shook his head. I tried to make up for it with the “I mean, I’m doing well,” and pretend I was already so important there that I couldn’t deal with his questions, but it was too late. First-day jitters strike again.
I made it through the day, though, and that’s all I needed to do. Another first day of my life was complete, and — once I got the heel of my shoe unstuck from the crevice between the last two stairs on the way out, of course in front of the cute guy — I could finally move on to Day Two.
Megan Murphy, a junior in the School of Education who is studying in Dublin this semester, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].