Working from work

I went to work today, outside the house, for the first time in over two years, and I’m exhausted. How do people do this every day? How did I do it every day for decades, literally decades, before COVID sent us home to work in our little corners? 

Exhausting, I tell you. Because this wasn’t just my first day back, it was my first day, period. I started my new job today, and so I’m exhausted from being out all day, and I’m exhausted from filling out forms, paper and electronic, and learning log-ins for multiple different “enterprise” God help me systems, and meeting new people and trying my utmost to remember their names. 

And I also have to learn how to navigate a whole new bureaucracy. I have to learn how to get things done in a new organization, and how to negotiate my way through a brand-new hierarchy that is no more or less convoluted than the one that I just left; it’s just different. I need to figure out the chain of command. I need to identify the movers and the shakers and the people who can grease the proverbial wheels, and I have to make friends with those people. Well, I’m going to make friends with everybody because I always make friends with everybody, but you know what I mean. I didn’t mean to come across as a cynical jerk. 

*****

Day 2. It's 7:33 AM and I'm sitting in the waiting room at the Base Pass and ID Building at Naval Support Activity Bethesda, home of what was once called the Naval Hospital and is now known as Walter Reed Medical Center. My first day pass was valid for only one day and my boss is trying to get me a 30-day pass but the Navy might not go for that. If I can't get a long-term pass, then I'll have to get a visitor's badge every day until I get my CAC card. Let's hope that I don't have to do this for long, because the tiny parking lot at the visitor's building is hard to get into from the Pike, and it's even harder to get back out and into the base entry line. 

Yesterday I missed the parking lot altogether, and ended up in the base entry line. The very kind Navy Police officer allowed me to U-turn out of her line, and she stopped incoming traffic to allow me to cross three lanes and enter the parking lot. I cannot expect that level of forbearance every day. 

*****

I got my base pass in record time, and now I can just breeze through the gates with everyone else who works at NSAB. Young people in uniforms call me ma’am all day. I’ve never minded being addressed as ma’am. It’s actually quite lovely. I try to be worthy. 

So yes, now I breeze through the gates, and then I promptly get lost. Three days in a row I’ve taken a wrong turn past the sentry and gotten myself hopelessly lost. Well not hopelessly because NSAB is just not that big but it’s big enough that you can drive around for a bit before you get your bearings. Everyone tells me that it happens to everyone “at first” and that I’ll get myself oriented in no time. They don’t know me very well. I’m still having a hard time finding my way from my office to the water fountain. On a  military base spanning several thousand square acres, the scope for getting lost is almost unlimited. I’ll report back. Often, I’m sure. 

*****

I’m always happy when Friday rolls around and Fridays are even better when you work in an office rather than at home. The transition from work week to weekend is clearer. The de-escalation is palpable. Everything seems to slow down and soften a bit. 

But you know what? I love this job. I really love it. I’m working in a place that feels set apart from the world, though not in a distant or removed way. The whole place bustles with energy and purpose. My little workspace is not especially pretty but it’s quiet and private enough that I can think but not so private and quiet that I feel alone. I did useful work this week, and made a staggeringly long list of things to learn about and projects to take on. It’s all quite exciting. Bracing, really. And I made it in and out of there today without getting lost.