flying through the workday

i’ve been at this job for a little over a week. so far i’ve basically done three things: dealt with disclosure forms (criminal background checks), written letters verifying that students are indeed students, and added students into courses for the upcoming semester.

i guess i should say what i do, but i feel like i just did. i’m a student support officer at the moray house school of education, at the university of edinburgh. i’ve been told that the job goes through an annual cycle - right now, we are dealing with incoming students, which is why i’m working on criminal checks and enrollment. i’m not sure what exactly i will be doing once classes start - that’s one of the things that makes me excited, but nervous, about the job.

the building my office is in

most days, i feel like my job is like a transatlantic flight. first, in terms of length. my work day is 7 ½ hours, similar to a transatlantic flight, but also the flow of the day matches my experience on long flights.

when i get to work, there is a flurry of activity; things have come in that need to be dealt with, overnight emails are responded to, and there is just this energy in the office. much like the first hour or two of a transatlantic flight - the safety information, the anticipation of the flight taking off, the take off, the leveling off, the ‘now you can use approved devices’, and the first meal (if there’s more than one) or drinks. then, you hit the middle several hours of the flight; the dull hours.

i’m restless during those hours, hoping there is something decent to do on the multi-media screens these flights have. maybe a decent movie, maybe an episode of ‘how i met your mother’, just to kill some time. work is similar in the middle hours.

not much happens after my coworker leaves at 12.30 (she works ½ days). i eat my lunch then i sit and wait. i listen to my now dwindling number of podcasts, hoping a student comes by with a disclosure form, to give me something to do. a call may come in, which is a good and bad thing - getting a call gives me something to do, but i hope the person on the other end of the line doesn’t have an accent i might have problems with. i play around online a bit. all of this is like finding that not-so-crappy movie, that ‘how i met your mother’ episode to help pass the time.

then, the last hour arrives - 3.30. only one more hour to go. i start counting down the minutes to get out of this seat, this room, this building, this plane i’ve been on for the past 6 ½ hours. i watch the clock, watch the location of the plane get closer and closer to my destination, listen to a podcast or two, knowing that when the podcast ends, there will only be x minutes.

the plane decends, the day ends. the servitor in our building comes through to lock things up, the flight attendants come by one last time. i deplane, i walk out of the building, into the mass of people at the airport, or on the royal mile. i make my way through the people, looking for the bus, or car that will take me home. the flight is over, the day has ended - i’m homeward bound.