A Few Personal Touches

Well, I did get the other car seat cover onto the passenger's side tonight--sort of--and managed to swap out the steering wheel cover.  The one-size-fits-most-seats-with-headrests seat covers are a little big in spots, and keep slipping off.  As I expected, they're also warmer than the uncovered beige leather was. I'm hoping that John can use the clips and elastic loops to secure them better.

I had another good day at work today.  I finished all but one piece of the major project I've been working on since my first day at this new job, complete with innovations and streamlining and it all finally making sense to me.  I've got that last piece to handle tomorrow.  That's kicking my butt a bit, but I'll figure it out. 

I also got another 128 MB of RAM today.  A tech showed up this morning and said, "I heard a rumor that you want a faster computer."  Well, yeah!  That's not exactly what the RAM is for, but I think it's helping a little bit.

The best thing that happened to me today was that one of the people who was unpleasant to me a week or two ago over the allergy thing was perfectly nice in a brief exchange at quitting time.  We smiled and everything.  So I feel better now.

On the decorating front, I decided, for starters, to personalize my cubicle by displaying one of the panoramic Disneyland photos, the Noodle & Tuffy photo (because it was handy, and already damaged), and a page of Sherlock's Mâvarin portraits.   I even found some clear push pins to use, strictly outside the paper instead of piercing it.  At the top of the portrait printout, it says, "Meet the Mâvarinû," the same as on the web site.  At the bottom it says, "Art by Sherlock - Novels by Karen Funk Blocher." That way, maybe nobody will ask if I drew the pictures. 

And on top of the cabinet, I put Zorro and Lilo.

Nobody noticed.  At least, nobody mentioned any of my additions.  After all my agonizing, it doesn't seem to have mattered so far, at least in terms of people getting to know me better.

Still, that's not the only reason I brought the stuff in.  Those things are mostly there for me.  It made me feel good to see Rani and friends throughout the day, and to know that Zorro is watching over me, inanimately but symbolically.  If having these things around makes me feel even 1% more confident, more like myself, then it's worth doing!

I took all these cubicle photos at the end of the day, after most people had left.  It made me nervous to see and hear the flash go off, but nobody came to see what I was doing, or to accuse me of industrial spying (my silly paranoia du jour).  Since I do want to continue to be discreet about where I work, and don't want to betray any confidential information (I am working with financial data, after all!), I spent about an hour blurring and distorting all the pages in this last photo to make sure they're completely unreadable.  This way, you get a general idea of what it looks like.  It's a fairly neat, fairly impersonal workspace, but the globe and the green airplane pen give it a little character. 

I also obscured one of my three mouse pads in another photo.  Why do I use three?  One for the gel thing, one to protect my arm, and one to use as the actual mouse pad.  It works--sort of! But I have been getting a tingly arm during some of the more extended mouse-clicking sessions.  I'll have to be careful about that.

And in case you're wondering, no, there's nothing nefarious about this job or this company. I'm just being extra-cautious here. It's a very ethical, very professional work environment, and very different, strictly on the basis of size, from every other place I've ever worked.  I freely admit, this freaks me out a little.  Nevertheless, it's a good job with a good company. I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my position, or betray anyone's trust.

Karen