My Job In All Of Its Glory

           Some of you have been inquiring about my new job, so I decided to put it all out there. This week was my first days at my job site. HOLY COW! I mean this is my first big girl job, but wow. Before my pre-service orientation, a week ago wenesday, Missoula was all dreamy swimming, decorating, eating, sewing, reading, etc. Then PSO was a reaaaallly LAME three days (24 hours!) of sitting while this old woman, that looked like Angela Lansbury, spouted out stereotypes about “battered women” and poor people who are poor “because they are unwilling or unable to be flexible thinkers!” Anyway, I drank a lot of coffee, drew a LOT of cartoons, and "argued" more than I ever have in my life. I came home from those three days READY for the weekend. We swam, had picnics, and read our book. We tried out this pretty alternative Catholic Church too (more on that another time). It was a really nice and relaxing weekend. And then my first week of work arrived.

My job is HARD! For the sake of honesty I will tell you that I cried Monday night, Tuesday night, AND Wednesday night. But then Thursday I didn’t. We’ll see about tonight. I felt completely overwhelmed and disappointed by my job. I mean most new things, especially jobs are hard the first day, right? Right. So, I keep reminding myself of that fact. Guess what my job is? Working heart to heart with women escaping domestic abuse? Nope. Doing their interviews and playing with their kids? Nope. My job is to build from scratch (the software) a database to record all of their personal information and the resources they used from the YWCA. There are three flavors of shelter that we offer…emergency shelter, a confidential hotel room for 55 days, and an 18 month home. Almost all of the women utilize at least two of these services. And do you know who is going to get them the funding to do that by building a database? Me. Yep, Abigail Ewing. Abigail Ewing who has trouble figuring out Gmail and saving photos from the web. Probably the kicker is that no one in the organization has ever used, or knows how to use the software that I’m using. Hilarious, right? I actually asked my supervisor why she hired me (with no background in computer stuff). She said no one else they interviewed knew either. BUT, then I watched six and a half hours of tutorials on youtube, read a TON of stuff online, and started e-mailing OCP Bill a bunch of questions. And you know what? I’m getting kind of excited. I think I maybe, possibly, could one day do this with Bill’s help. I mapped out a bunch of stuff, showed it to my supervisor, and she was shocked by my progress. So I’m ending the work week on a good note. Who knows for sure if I can do this, but I’ll try.

The rest of my job is awesome. I work with all women/men that dress like women. This is a nice change of pace. Also, no one here wears diapers(another newness). The YWCA is into this great thing called wellness. “Wellness?” You say, “Is that eating right and getting plenty of sleep.” Nope! It’s about coming to work 30 minutes late or leaving 30 minutes early every day! You can do either one of those and then use that time to do something that promotes well-being. So I bike home and take a nap! Awesome, right? Also, yesterday my job was to receive a bike tour of the city (sixish miles). It was so fun! This was mostly because it was led by my new work mate, Hattie who has lived here for a year. Our tour included a free pastry and ice cream cone!


I think I'm going to make it. I think I'll learn a ton in the process. 


Missing you guys.


Abigail