My nuclear power plant is 45 minutes away from where I live. So I get up at 6 every morning and grudgingly pet my pretty Bengal kitties (see here:
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and get up to wash my face and brush my teeth. Now here is where my day is probably different than yours (unless you don’t own Bengal kittens)-next I decide what to wear. See there are two kinds of people at the NPP, upper management, who dress like they work in an office, and the rest of us, who dress like we work in a plant. I put on jeans. Most days I put on a nice sweater but SOME days, I go full out lazy and put on a hoodie and tennis shoes or work boots. Last week I saw someone in sweatpants. I used to wear office gear at the NPP, but people started mistaking me for a secretary and that drove me crazy and my co-workers made fun of me. In fact, the running joke around here is the pink suit I wore to my first interview. No one lets me forget it. They also don’t let me forget the time I was wearing heels and caught them on the carpet and fell down in front of the safety manger and managed to get a CR written on myself that effectively banned high heels from the plant and gave me the worst carpet burn I’ve had in my life. I cried. And some “first aid” moron put iodine on it-which made me cry harder. So now I wear tennis shoes or boots.
So I make Seth breakfast, pack lunches and then I make my 45 minute drive, which isn’t too bad. I listen to my music, the radio, and listen to the Garmin yell at me, because NPP’s aren’t on any of their maps.
Then I come to work. Right when I come in, I get free tea-with lemon packets. And these lemon packets are the greatest thing in the world. Let me tell you. No seeds to get sucked up and choked on in meetings, perfect measured out quantities of lemon juice so you know exactly how much lemony you want in your water or tea (two packets). Then I go upstairs to my little quiet cube and do my work, update my blog, and email my friends.
My boss remembers facts from my random ramblings thru out the day. In fact I quit this job, went away for a year and a half, and came back and my boss still remembered my random facts like what kind of car I drive or what my husband does or my cats names. Which makes him the best boss ever. That and he gives me candy and lets me go early in bad weather.
There are free tampons in the bathroom. There is free good lotion all over the plant because the air is so dry here. There is free anti-bacterial stuff that spooges out of machines when you put your hand under them. There are free ear plugs! As many as you can stuff in your pockets before the elevator door opens.
The people are pretty straight forward. When they want something they ask, they are down to earth and if they don’t like you, they stay away from you. Simple as that. There is your usual power struggles, but if you don’t get involved and go with the flow, you can remain pretty stress free, even under deadlines. And trust, this place has deadlines.
The only problem I seem to have is that I’m one of the younger females here. There aren’t a lot of females, let alone young ones, so all the old guys want to stop and talk to you. The other issue, the reason I’m blogging today is me and names. See NPP is one of those places where you tend to have to go here and there through the course of my day (see my first blog about my frequent trips to the bathroom and my trips with the stubborn uncool cart) and you always pass someone no matter where you are going. And there are a lot of people who work here, usually older gentleman, old nuclear submarine engineers with the driest senses of humor, who are all named Joe, or Steve, or Bill. And most of the time, I just pass them in the hallway. I’ve been in various meetings with all of them at one time or another. I’ve been on their project teams, done work for them, or done work near someone who was working for them. But unless they come out and say their names or I go to their cubes and read their signs, or someone tells me-I have no idea who they are. NONE. So I make up nicknames for them in my head. There is “Creepy guy who calls me Madonna”, “Nuclear Hot Guy”, “Smelly Breath Old Guy”, “Really, Really, Tall Guy”, “Pinched-faced Lady”, “Lady who is always taking a dump in the bathroom but trying to fake it and wait you out”, “Uber happy guy”, “Sharpei-face guy”, “Inappropriate touching and back rubbing guy” (who you avoid by ducking into other cubes and wait until he walks by), the list goes on and on. When I email my friends, they only know people by these names. If they ever met them in real life they would go-who?
So here in lies the problem. I work in an area where people stop by all the time for help with things. They always lean over the wall and say “Hey could you tell Michelle I stopped by to get help with this form?” and I’m like “Sureee….you…” and then when Michelle comes back and ask who it was-all I have is “Oh you know, that guy, who wears his name tag backward and shuffles his feet when he walks…” Then I realize, no one is as socially judgmental and picky as me and everyone else probably bothers to learn or ask other peoples names.
So that is always one of those moments where I expose my true colors to my co-workers and then I can see it turning in their head like, yeah, he does have a shuffle walk. And then they get mad at me because now it’s all they can see in the person. Especially the beak nosed lady.
At the end of the day, I drive my 45 minutes home. I love that drive, because I get to go home (which I love my home), I get to listen to my music really loud and sing along (my loud rap music), no one talks to me because until I get to the interstate I have spotty cell service (plus I hate talking on the phone, but that’s another blog), and it goes pretty fast for me. Then I get home and pet my kitties.
So there you have it, my last blog of the day (I swear) about my job at the NPP.
Have a great rest of today and an awesome tomorrow!
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