Ants In My Pants

In the past week I've learned what it's like to sit, day after day, staring at a computer screen, like so many workers out there.  I decided to take a week long temp position with a financial company - it pays better than substitute teaching and I needed a break from the kiddies.  The job sounded boring but I figured, how bad could it be?

Well, pretty bad.  I take an investment statement from a box, check the client address and return address with an Excel file for accuracy, then turn to the next page and make sure the information is correct on that page too.  Then I set it aside and take the next statement.  This is what I do for eight hours every day.  There is no change at all.  It is the most boring and repetitive thing I have ever done.  Each box can have anywhere from 15 to 225 statements in it, and there are about 8,000 statements to go through (with four other temps).

I have never had more "ants in my pants" than the last five work days.  By the time 3pm rolls around I start fidgeting, and get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink or even just walk out of the room for a few minutes.  As soon as 5:30pm hits I'm outta there but then have to sit in my car for 30-40 minutes.  When I get home all I want to do is get outside and run, which is great health-wise but the cause of my newfound desire to run is not my favorite.  I just have so much freakin' energy after not doing a damn thing all day except exercise my eyeballs.

The one great thing is that the company has a lot of extras that I don't get when I'm working for a nonprofit.  There is a ridiculous free bagel spread every Friday (every flavor, crazy amounts of spread, giant blocks of fancy cheese, nutella, and juices galore), every bathroom has hair spray, lint rollers, de-static spray, and lifesavers, and there is free coffee, tea and hot chocolate.  Nice perks!

There is only one more day (two at the very most) before I go back to subbing.  I guess it's a nice break from working with kids all day, but the work is so mind-numbing that I really don't know if I could have done it very much longer.