My First Day

Today I started work in my new position as a soil conservation student trainee working for the federal government. So of course because it is the federal government I spent the first four hours of my day filling out paper work that allows me to work for the government and get paid with your tax dollars. That was quite boring, especially because I've already been through all of this paper work, at least most of it, with the job I have back at home in the lab. Although now I will actually have a need to drive government vehicles. Another new piece of paperwork I had to complete was that for New York state taxes. Tax forms can be confusing.

I was introduced to everyone and everything in my office. Being introduced to the people = normal, being introduced (like "Kelsi this is the fax machine, fax machine this is Kelsi") = strange boss. I think my boss can be overly nice and a bit weird. My co-workers are cool though. And eventually this summer I'm going to meet the other interns.

My day after paper work goes something like the follows. Took my lunch break - ate lunch at my desk and read some of "Midnight Assassin." Finished more wonderful paper work. And then I actually did something! I worked with a couple of my co-workers determining HEL - Highly Erodable Land. I guess I'll be working with that a lot this summer, as long as I don't get it all done and run out of things to do.

One thing that I don't think my boss has quite caught onto yet is that I catch on to things usually very quickly and that I've had quite a bit of experience with slopes, soils, the web soil survey, and the county soil surveys. I realize that not every intern has had the experience that I've had but I don't want to be treated like an idiot either.

Once we were done working on that I basically sat around. Read some more of my book, cruised around the NRCS website because I'm not really allowed to look at much else. Every move I make on my computer at work is tracked by the man. On that note, I do have my own desk and computer. I did also do some geometry like practice problems that dealt with things that I'll potentially be working with - like sizes and depths of ponds, cliff faces etc. To me it's interesting stuff, at least the potential idea that I'll be working with that stuff, not so much the geometry.

One last thing about today. With my job, like I did at the lab, I earn vacation hours with every time period. Unfortunately I can't transfer the hours I earn this summer back to my job at home. They are forcing me to use up my hours before the end of tour of duty. At least that makes it a lot easier to go get my man at the airport than it would have been otherwise.