Write about your first day at your current job.
Most jobs these days are pretty similar on day one. You go to HR, finish filling out any paperwork you need to complete, get your name tag/badge/ID, and sit through orientations. Sometimes you get OTJ training first day, sometimes you don’t. Usually you meet your boss and your coworkers and get a tour of your place of work. My first day pretty much went like that, though it wasn’t all that smooth.
For one thing, my boss had just left for a week-long vacation the day I started. After my morning with HR and sitting through a couple orientation meetings with a handful of other new-hires, I went to the other building to find my team. I met the other team lead in our program and she helped me settle in, though she wasn’t sure how much to show me because her team did different work than mine.
For another thing, I didn’t actually have a desk yet. Since my boss was out of town, I squatted at his window desk for my first week. We were on the 8th floor and had a stunning view of the city across the river. I enjoyed it while I could. And honestly, I spent a good deal of time staring out that first afternoon because I had technical difficulties getting into the system.
Part of the problem was that we had a couple different logins for things, and I had only been given one when I got set up during orientation. The rest of the logins were sent to my boss, who, as I stated already, was out on vacation. So I also spent a good amount of time on my first day on the phone with the help desk trying to get my accesses sent to a different manager so I could at least log in to a computer.
Come to find out, my customer clock ID hadn’t yet been authorized, so I had to wait for them to finish stuff on their end before I could log in to their system. It wasn’t until the end of the day that I finally got my clock ID and was able to log in so I could submit my time in our system, but it worked out eventually. Overall, it was a more unique day one than any other job I’ve had.
Describe a wedding cake you have seen or had.
Oh hey, I got married a couple years ago (two days til our anniversary) and had a cake at my wedding! I can answer this prompt with another short personal blurb.
Since we were getting married on a mountain in the heart of the Adirondacks I wanted something with a rustic design. I’d seen a lot of ideas on Pinterest (as you do, when you’re a bride-to-be) and knew it could be done, if not how. Part of the problem in finding a baker was the travel distance to the venue. Anyone we chose would have to drive at least 45 minutes through twisty, windy mountain roads to get to the resort, but we eventually found someone who could do it for us.
She worked as a hotel manager in a different small mountain town so we met her there for our tasting. She had all kinds of flavors and frostings but we picked three of each to taste and she made cupcakes for us to frost as we pleased. We actually considered the cupcakes instead of the cake, when we realized we loved all three flavors and couldn’t decide on one. However, since we were going to have multiple tiers in order to have enough for all of our guests, we could have each tier be a different flavor, and that’s what we did.
The bottom two tiers were chocolate and angel cake with chocolate frosting while the top two tiers were angel cake and red velvet with buttercream frosting. I especially loved the red velvet, but figured it was best to have that as the smallest portion since it is not everyone’s favorite. I also had a few guests who were gluten-free so I ordered a dozen cupcakes as well. There was something for everyone!
For the design, I explained my vision and showed her a couple pictures of similar cakes I had seen online (*cough* Pinterest *cough*) that I hoped she could emulate. There was one that was frosted to look like a birch tree, complete with initials “carved” into it. On the day of my wedding, when I arrived at the venue, that cake was waiting for me! She succeeded in making my vision a reality and I was so excited. In addition to the cake looking like a carved tree, she had decorated it with wildflowers and pinecones from around her hotel, and laid the cupcakes out around the cake like fallen petals.
It was a magical cake to make my magical day extra special. And it was delicious!
Notes: So as I suspected, we got home kinda late last night and I was too tired to start writing anything. We had a really nice day though, so I have no regrets whatsoever. Despite the heat wave, Newport was actually much cooler than the rest of New England. It was a comfy 75 with a light breeze and almost no humidity. I only got a little sunburned on my right arm (we had first row west court-side seats) but I didn’t even notice it until the shade had crept toward us. We got to watch John Isner play and he even walked right by us on his way to his TV interview. I knew he was tall, but you don’t truly appreciate 6’10” until it’s towering over you.
Today is much hotter. Just like some 175 million other people, we are under an excessive heat watch. Keeping the house as cool as we can with fans and air conditioning. It’s a little stuff in my office, but I can retreat to the living room or bedroom whenever I please. I think I’m gonna go do that now actually. Gonna fire up the PS4 and play some more Heavy Rain. Hopefully I don’t struggle as much now that I’ve lowered the difficulty, haha!
Stay cool out there! Don’t forget to drink water every couple hours! Have a great rest of your weekend. I’ll see you tomorrow!
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Closet Full of Notebooks 