My first day

So, my first day of work didn't start off so awesome. First off, I had a HORRIBLE night's sleep. Didn't finally get to sleep until probably 2am. Had to get up at 6am....yeah...
Probably had a little bit to do with the fact that I went to Applebee's with Chris and downed two huge white peach sangria's, to celebrate my new job, in a half hour time span. Kinda stupid, sure, but it made me feel so relaxed :)

Anyway, back to the morning. So, 5am rolls around and my little shit of a cat is doing everything in his power to get me to feed him as per usual, rubbing his whole body on my head, licking my arm or my forehead, rubbing his cold wet nose on me, you name it. So, I get up at 5:30 and feed him his kibble just to get him to shut the fuck up. Go back to sleep, wake up at 6, drag myself out of bed, start getting ready, as I'm in the bedroom getting dressed and shit I hear Pharoah puking. GREAT!!! Just what I need right now. Sure as shit he's just thrown up all over the sink and looks like he's ready for round two on the hall carpet, so I have to swoop in like a ninja and throw him onto a tile surface so that I don't have scrubbing to do, and luckily he made it. But, yeah, had that to add to my getting ready this morning.

Got dressed, did my hair, all that jazz. Couldn't eat a bite cause my stomach was like a big knot. I hate first days. I'm normally an anxious person when it comes to new social inneractions, but first days are especially awful for me. Especially in this case because I've NEVER worked in an office before, let alone a dentists office, so I really have no idea what to expect.

Finally got out the door around 7:15. Traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but still a little dodgey. Got to work right on time, actually a couple minutes early. Right off the bat everyone was super friendly. The dentists all greeted me and were really nice to me. I started off my day with a stack of new hire paperwork, which I suppose was to be expected. Filled out all the tax forms and the workplace policy crap and all the normal stuff. Then and at the same time was immediately told that I had to basically read through these two boring powerpoint presentations, one on health and safety precautions (how to properly disinfect things, how to properly deal with "sharps" and "biohazard" shit), and another one on patient privacy and confidentiality stuff. Then after each one I had to take a little quiz. Both were a breeze but just long and boring.

Next part of my day was being thrown into the lions den, so to speak. Even though my job will basically really only entail me sitting at a desk on the phone all day and checking patients in for appointments, I guess they want you to get a feel for what the dental practice is all about so, I became a dental assistant for a day. Had to "suit up" in a lab coat and started off just observing a filling being done on a patient. Got to take the chart out to the waiting room and call the patient in. Then basically just awkwardly stood in the corner while this kid had a filling put in. Then after that they taught me how to "turn over" a room, which is essentially just scrubbing all of the equipment and seat down with cavicide (a disinfectant), taking the instruments to be sterilized, then re-covering everything down with little plastic covers, discarding plastic tubes from the little water vacuums, and even sometimes having to throw away needles and bloody gauze and shit, which I thought would make me creeped out, but I was surprisingly ok with it. I fucked up on my procedure a couple times but the dentists and the assistance were all really patient with me and helpful so it made me feel ok about being so awkward with everything. But by the third or fourth room turnover I was pretty at ease. Once you get the system down it's pretty self explanatory. The only part that did freak me out a little was when I went to turn a room over and I took out one of the plastic hoses from a machine and some bloody water came out of the hose. I kind of freaked out not knowing if I screwed up or something, and so I called over to one of the dental assistants and she came over to me and was just like, "ok, just put that down and I'll take care of it." Then she proceeded to storm out of the room and jokingly bitch out one of the other assistants cause he didn't properly clean out the hoses from the last tooth extraction. It was pretty funny actually, cause he came in the room and pointed at me like I did it as a joke, and I was like, "oh hell no, don't do that to me on my first day, that's not cool!" and the whole room started laughing. It made me feel pretty good :)

I also spent a portion of my afternoon observing how to take x-rays, how to sterilize tools, how to aid the dental hygienists, and watched the denture people make dentures by hand. Pretty crazy day, but also pretty enlightening. Really different, but kind of cool and interesting at the same time. I felt really at home with the staff though, it kind of made me sad that I wouldn't get to be interacting with them all the time, but at least now I have a sense of what their jobs are like and I'm starting to get a feel for terminology and stuff. I'm still a little scared to start answering phones and doing the insurance part because I've never done anything like that before, but it will just take some time, and I know eventually I will be able to handle it.

I had a chance to have lunch with the girl who has does my job so I got to have a few of my questions answered. She told me that it will probably take me at least a month to get comfortable with the flow of the office and making appointments and everything, which is to be expected. She said it is definitely kind of stressful at times, a lot of answering the phone, but you get the hang of it. I work Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 7:45-5 and Tuesdays 11-8 with an hour lunch break every day. I was told that we also have to work one Saturday a month, but I'm not sure if that means that we get an additional day off during the week or if we just get overtime. One of many unanswered questions I still have. The only downside I've found so far is that I basically don't get any paid time off until the new year, and even then I only get one week of PTO. From what Christina told me, you accrue more time off every year that you work there, so I'm assuming every year you get another week of PTO, or something to that extent. Whatever, it's cool with me. For now, as long as it's steady work with good pay and good benefits, I'm a happy camper.

So yeah, I had a pretty eventful day. My manager Curt was really supportive at the end of the day and thanked me for my hard work. It's nice to finally feel appreciated for once at a job :)

After work I decided to go visit my old work and see my co-workers since I'm just down the street from them again. They were all really happy for me, and it was cool to come back and kind of get "closure" if you will. It was also fun to talk about all the work gossip, as there is an never ending supply at that place. Even better to know that I wont ever have to take their bullshit every again! I also went and visited my buddy Katrina who now works at Anne Taylor across the street from my old work and got to catch up with her life a little bit. She always makes me laugh, that goofball.

And now I'm home. Already took some preemptive Excedrin which was definitely a good decision cause I definitely felt a headache coming on. It was a long day and I was stressed from beginning to end, but it was fun. I feel a lot more confident now though, and I feel better about the people I work with. For the most part peeps seem pretty cool, especially the dentists.

Well, that be it for today. Round two begins Monday, so I'm sure I'll have many more stories to tell you then. Now for the best sleep of my life and two days of nothing. aaaaaaahhhh :)