in which I take my humble place in the ranks of the employed

NU?

New job, new era. Starting fresh where no one knows me is always interesting, in that I imagine it to be an opportunity to reinvent myself. There's this fantasy that I'll finally be considered cool, popular, worth hanging out with. Thing is, wherever you go, as they say, there you are. I'm still the same person, and that reality, for better or worse, is what comes through to others, no matter my futile attempts to be New and Improved.

On the other hand, decades have passed since I was told, three days into a new waitressing job, that I "rubbed people the wrong way" and given the boot. I have learned a thing or two about getting along and rubbing people the right way since then. It's been a long hard trek through office jobs, teaching jobs, courses, and unemployment lines; I'll never be as good at the people game as my mother and sister are, but I'm learning.

This job came to me, finally, so easily. The interviewing process was smooth and relatively painless, and the wait for a final answer blessedly brief. For some reason, it was clear to them very quickly that I was the one they wanted. That I fit them. No one else had thought so, all these months, but the people at this company did. There is something very special about that, like I've found a kind of home. And since I'll be spending more waking hours at work than at home from now on, that's a good thing.

My new boss is a woman, and seems like she's a great manager. I've had so many bad managers in the past. They're almost always bad in one of two ways: Either they're a)mother hens who are trying to say yes to everyone, keep an open-door policy, can't manage their own schedule, and are constantly putting out fires, or more commonly, b) they are arrogant -- sometimes to the point of abusive -- tyrants that never convey appreciation or any satisfying sense of collaboration. My new boss has the balance right: She collaborates with her team while defending them from attacks from the "outside". She says she's considered the bitch, while the members of her team get to be well-loved by the people in the company that need our services. I don't believe the bitch part, because I see she operates pretty diplomatically, but she says she has no problem with standing up to people who are demanding unjustifiable priority for our limited resources, and I believe it. We established an easy rapport today, talking for ages, including over lunch, and I don't remember ever feeling so relaxed on a first day at a job. Everyone I dealt with was professional, efficient, friendly; my email and phone and car were all ready for me when I arrived; and any administrative glitches were quickly dealt with. From my experience, this is an unusually well-managed company.

It's still exhausting, but a company like this definitely takes the sting out of having to work for a living.