changes

I was one of the lucky ones who found a job right after graduation, in a field parallel to my own. I have been working here for almost 2 years, but sadly the job is coming to an end when March ends. Time is quickly running out, and one of our objectives as an organization was to disseminate our research into as many nooks and crannys that Nova Scotia and surrounding areas have. This breaks down into some underpaid minion having to collate and organize large sheafs of paper to be mailed out. Of course, that minion is me. This is a job that I have been dreading, but knew that eventually I would have to tackle it. I began slowly. First printing off all the labels that I would need. But soon after starting this mindless job, I realized that it wasn't going to be as simple as orginally thought. My computer would only allow me to type 1 label at a time. No matter how I arranged the settings, only 1 label would print at a time. Do you understand the tedium this caused? I spent an entire day printing labels....feeding and re-feeding the labels sheets into the printer. Thankfully, the labels were finished. And it was time for the packaging. On first appearances, not too shabby of a job. It just involved taking 11 fact sheets, and 7 reports and stuffing them in an envelope. Except that the envelopes I had in the office wouldn't fit what I had to put in them. My boss told me just to cut the envelope and tape it around the package. I was skeptical, but I wasn't going to try and talk my headstrong boss out of his obviously inherant cheap skatedness. So, I cut 180 envelopes (causing the first knuckle of my middle finger to go numb, likely because of a pinched nerve, it is still numb today and I cut the envelopes on Monday). Then the wrapping started. And went on, and on, and on. I am now the Papercut Princess. Finally, Tuesday afternoon, all 180 packages were nicely wrapped and ready to go. Next problem was getting the beasts to the post office. Which was all the way on the other side of campus. I decided that yesterday would be the day. And before lunch I hauled the 5 very heavy boxes out to my car. Did I mention that there were 5 boxes, and I carried them down nearly 3 sets of stairs to my car? Yeah, say hello to my hernia. I felt so accomplished yesterday. These packages have been on my mind for ages, and they were finally out of my office. After lunch I eagerly went to the post office with one of those boxes. The guy at the post office took one look at my hard work and told me that no way in hell would they send them. I just looked at him. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I kinda laughed a little nervously, thinking about what was ahead of me. A lot more packages, a lot more labels, and a lot more taping. Then I wanted to cry. I hauled the box back to the car, and got in...very close to hysteria. Drove back to my office, and immediately called my boss. In a matter of fact tone, he told me to go to the Town Post Office, and see if they would send it...they would, with a little more tape. I could hear the angels singing in heaven. THANK GOD! Just a little more taping I could handle. But then I stopped, and realized that there was no way that I was going to haul those 5 boxes back up to my office, tape them, and then haul them back down again. So today, I went and bought two rolls of packing tape, and I am seriously considering just sitting in my car and taping those packages. How crazy is that?? I hate my job.