Turns out I wanted to talk about my job

I don't have anything specific that I want to say today, but I was finally reading a few entries on my stand-by favorite blog (Roni's Weigh), and I felt like writing. The coffee is helping... have I ever mentioned that coffee gets me positively high? Well, it does.

I'm sitting here in my office. Next to my huge window. Overlooking (a parking lot, and) Chuck Yeager Bridge in Charleston, WV. It's cloudy this morning, and the sun is shooting out from between some clouds with smoky beams of light heading down over the mountain. It's quiet because not everybody is here yet... I already have an email request waiting for me, but I've chosen to ignore it for these few minutes.

I think the bottom line here is that I am very happy to be gainfully employed, after a very trying year of not being sure what would be next for me and the rest of the Cooper Family. In addition, I also really like my job, and I love that my office has this window. Not everybody gets one, but I have one. Some people have one but keep the blinds shut all day. I think that's a waste. Even though the weather outside is affecting my comfort sitting here right next to the window, I'm going to tough it out, and eventually one day I'll be looking out at snow falling on the parking lot. I don't know if I'll get anything done that day.

I've liked this job since the day it started, at least after I realized that my supervisor really was a nice guy, and that the lady I would be working with didn't hate me (ladies tend to hate me). I came into the job in a very busy time, so busy in fact that my group was "sequestered" in another part of the building, working out of a conference room, allowed very little interruption. We have since moved back to our offices, but that time in the conference room getting to know everyone, sharing breakfasts, snacks, jokes, and stories, was priceless. I know for sure that all of us who were up there miss it very much.

One sad thing that has happened since then is that the lady I was working with, who actually shares my first name, is gone. She needed to take a better-paying job to support her family, and has thus moved on to greener pastures. I miss her very much. She and I are similar people... she's a harder worker than I am, but we both have a strong sense of team and a drive for accomplishment. We worked well together, but more importantly she very quickly became a great friend. I don't befriend people (women) very readily, so this took me by surprise. Plus, she knew everything about this job. I could ask her anything and she knew the answer.

Now, I sit in this office alone, nobody on the other side of the ridiculous partition to make a joke to, nobody to lovingly call me "Coop" and deal out generous compliments to my already-inflated ego. I am still very busy, so the boss has told people specifically not to visit my office unless absolutely necessary. But alas, I have this window, and I have this job. Don't tell anybody who works here, but often when I sit down by this window with a stack of paper in front of me to go to work, the thought involuntarily pops into my head: "I love my job." Crazy, isn't it?