6 Week Report Card

I think I said "I love this job" about 27 times today. At least. Though, since I was in meetings with third parties and/or on the phone with investigative subjects much of the day, I kept most of my exclamations inside my head.

But seriously, I LOVE THIS JOB. It's taken a few weeks, and I still have a lot to learn- and I still do at least five things that terrify me every day, but I'm getting the hang of things. I know where to find stuff, know who to ask to do stuff, know the words to use to describe the stuff I'm asking about. I can make calls on my own, I've memorized my warnings under the Privacy Act, I don't fear answering my phone, and I don't get quite so scared to call people and ask questions about things I don't fully understand. Because it doesn't matter if I ask questions that might make me sound dumb (though I'm realizing more and more that my questions aren't dumb, I only fear they're dumb because I'm not a stock/options/financial statement reading expert)- what's important is that I ask the questions and do whatever I need to do to understand the transaction in question in order to best serve my client. And when your client is the federal government, people seem to have a lot of patience with you.

I worked 12 hours today - banking 3 credit hours for a future day off (the glories of government work- if I choose to work extra, I get it back 1-for-1 in vacation later), bounced between four investigations, made five phone calls with third-parties, met with one group of auditors, grabbed a lunch of queso-smothered steak nachos with a group of male co-workers who find my lunch-time appetite amusing, typed up an investigative report, and talked with an options expert in D.C.

I love this job.

In a separate check-up, our renovations our done!  Roger the Contractor is no longer JP's work-from-home co-worker and we have three (almost) fully-functional bathrooms!  Here's a preview of our new master bath (formerly a dark brown very old tiled, drop-ceiling'd, teeny tiny claustrophobic nightmare of a space), with Claire standing on the bench enjoying the rain shower. We love it!