You have seven seconds to make a first impression.
Seven whole 1-Mississippi’s to put on your one man show, and hope, that the audience will buy season tickets to come back to watch you again. So, you have to move quickly, as you tip toe through introductions and the shaking of pruney hands.
How does one even begin to plan for that first seven second encounter at a new job, in a new city, with a new climate and a subway system that always seems to make you feel like you are one wrong stop away from ending up In Canada!
Before I started my new job on Monday, I was only nervous about one thing. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel any jitterbugs over whether or not I would like this new career path I was about to sail away with. I didn’t even strategically plan how to get my co-wokers to sit with me at lunch or pump anxiety into my vital organs over whether or not I would be able to work the copy machine.
I was nervous about shoes. OMG SHOES!
I spent Sunday night galloping around my plush apartment trying to initiate a game plan for what kinds of shoes to wear with my tights and perfectly pressed high wasted skirt. It’s was going to rain and be cold enough that my sunburnt piggy toe could catch frost bite if it was not mummy wrapped in warm socks and casted in a boot.
I spent hours googling and calling friends who live in arctic-like places begging for advice on appropriate shoe attire that wouldn’t make my boss give my below ankle fashion the once over, leaving him with a first impression that I just don’t get it.
I tossed and I turned that night in bed over how I was going to wear my rain boots and pack my heels and do a quick switch in the lobby of my building, giving the security guard the correct first impression that I was a crazy person.
So, I entered work on my first day with a suitcase. People in the elevator looked at me as If i was moving in to this office building. I packed heels, three jackets and an extra pair of boots just in case the rain boots I was wearing got jacked around too much by the moody NYC climate.
I put my heels on in the bathroom as quick as a costume change in a Cher concert happens and stored my luggage away under my desk before my boss could even notice all the baggage I was bringing with me to the first day on the job.
I made it through my biggest fear and counted that my ten toes had made it with me.
Until i left work that day, walked three blocks in the pouring rain, and realized that I was still wearing my heels. I had left my getaway bag with my rain boots in my cubicle on the 12th floor.
The one little thing that I was worried about was making me slide and slip as I found myself running home, in heels, in the pouring rain.
After my 30 minute mix of walking and subway commute home, I stood outside my apartment, in a puddle of water,squeezing out the sides of my tights and shaking the drip drops off my leather heels.
It is my main man Murphy and his “law” that constantly reminds me why worrying or trying to plan every detail too far in advance is just simply a waste of time. Because let’s face it, no matter how many maps you study, scripts you memorize in your head to say to people or the amount of shoes you pack in your bag, things will without a doubt go wrong.
And so, I survived my first week in this chilled city with a few blisters, getting lost anywhere between 3 and 40 times and ending up in Queens (I don’t know how) on my way to work one morning.
But i couldn’t be more in LOVE with this adventure.
Plus, I’m constantly stuffing myself silly with bagels and pizza. Ah, the good life.
[ A special shout out to my smart Brother for getting this site up and running on it’s official domain of thethingsilearnedfrom.com! Without him, I would still be sitting underneath a pile of html instruction manuals and websites for dummies books. He taught me to never never give up on this. We are all always one refresh page away from greatness]
