Busy Times

On Wednesday morning I got to the lab at 9:00 in the morning and luckily ran into Serene (my "mentor") after I got out of the elevators. Apparently, I was supposed to attend a meeting for the technicians with her. I didn't know where the meeting was so I just followed her through the maze of hallways to the Board Room.

Karen and Thor were both there (other technicians that have been there from 1-3 years) and so was Kerry our supervisor. Most of the meeting was about how they were going to go about training me. A lot of it was spent just talking. We watched a few funny movies from the Baldapalooza too since neither Karen nor Thor were able to attend that.

After the meeting I was sent up to work with the Document Control Specialist, Lindsay. She is pretty cool. I saw a few Brandon Sanderson novels on her desk so that served as an ice breaker and we seemed to get along really well. I spent four to five hours just reading documents and completing training modules on the computer.

Lindsay scheduled two appointments for me that afternoon. Ye Xiao is our Training Specialist and I spent more than an hour listening to her go through her part of the training process. She was difficult to listen to because English isn't her first language and she has a very strong Chinese accent. I tried my best to decipher everything she said, though, and for the most part I think I did fairly well.

After Ye Xiao introduced me to Ana Hooker (she is Pakistani or something) who is one of the "higher ups" in our division, she dropped me off at Missy's cubicle. Missy is the Quality Control Specialist. She deals with all of the problems and mistakes that our division makes in documentation and labeling... that sort of thing. By the time she was finished with her presentation for me, it was 16:00 and time to go.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and I was really excited to get paid for hanging out with everyone at Becca's. The joys of working full-time!

Today I actually got to spend some time in the laboratory. I followed Serene (my "mentor") around wherever she went and she explained everything she was doing in detail.

What the technicians do is mostly receiving specimens from both the automated track and manually. Then they sort the specimens into different racks depending on which tests have been ordered for those samples. They also prepare the runs for different tests and get tubes ready for DNA extraction. It's all very interesting to me. I don't go back in until Monday, but Serene said that I get to start doing "Pour-Offs" which means that I'll actually be handling the whole blood. I'm excited.

:)

Preemptive Snow Plows

This morning I wasn't required to be at work until a little later in the morning. (8:00 rather than 7:50)

We spent a lot of time learning about benefit options and what sort of computer training we need to complete before actually doing specific things in the laboratory. Apparently I can actually get 100% tuition reimbursement for the major that I want to complete. So that's pretty cool.

At about noon we found out that the U was shutting down campus because of a blizzard that was supposed to be worse than Utah has seen in around two years. Everyone was encouraged to go home sooner rather than later. I clocked out at 2:45 or so (we were supposed to have a full 8 hour day) and got picked up at 3:30.

On the way back home we saw a snow plow already laying down salt. The sky was kind of gray-ish and the sky to the northwest was blue. It didn't look like there would be a storm rolling in to hit us all with a nasty blizzard... but that's what they said was going to happen.

When I got home I checked wunderground.com for more information about the weather. The "winter weather warning" explained that 4-8 inches of snow are expected to accumulate by morning. There was also a travel advisory based on high speed winds with gusts up to 60 mph. The high-wind-speed-warning was taken down at about 6 or 7 in the evening and after riding with Emma from Becca's back home... I have decided that all the hype from earlier today was almost completely unnecessary.

Maybe things will be different in the morning.

Maybe not.

Either way I still get to go to work for the first time in the Molecular Genetics department.

NEO

This morning I got to work half an hour earlier than I needed to because I had my dad drop me off and I wasn't sure how long it would take for us to get there. I was the first of my New Employee Orientation group to get there. We all got taken into an HR Training Room and started a very long day of learning procedures/policies, and signing papers.

There were seven others in my group, none of which will be working in my department.

David - Exceptions Handling (the department that figures out what to do with specimens that come in damaged or un-testable)

Zach - Research and Development (clinical experimentation in pathology)

Fa'te - Immunology (obviously or not... immune system tests)

Cory - I really don't remember where he's going... Oncology or something

Stacy - A med tech... don't remember what department

Megan - Automated Endocrinology

Quiet Girl - I don't remember anything about her at all either.


The highlight of my day was during lunch when the head honcho at HR got his hair shaved off as an incentive for the last year's food drive. He said he'd shave his head if they raised $15,000 thinking that there would be no way people would want him to shave his head that much.

They ended up with a grand total of $24,500 and the "Baldapalooza 2010" was hilarious.

Tomorrow I get to learn about my benefits for working full time.

Background Check?

Check!

It went through faster than expected, and ARUP decided to push my start date up to this Monday. I'll have to work through Thanksgiving, but that's fine with me.

It'll be one hundred percent official when I've signed the written offer at "New Employee Orientation" from Monday-Tuesday... and then I'll be working full-time in a laboratory!

One step closer to continuing my medical education and that's good enough.

:D

ARUP

Well, they called me back for a second interview after a month of silence. I had all but lost hope in getting a job there.

Long story short, they offered me a job in Molecular Genetics and I accepted. I train from November 29-December 1 and then I will be a full time employee.

Hannah's Hiatus at Home

We decided a little while ago that we wanted to celebrate Hannah's 19th birthday with her right here. Unfortunately, she couldn't come down from Rexburg on her actual birthday. It has been fun having her here for the weekend, though.

When she got home I was watching HIMYM with my friend Charla. We took a break in order to sing Happy Birthday to Hannah, eat cake and ice cream, and watch her open presents. The informal party ended up taking a little longer than we originally thought it would so we only watched a few more episodes before Charla went home.

Then Hannah and I visited Grandma Gerie and played with her new-ish kitten. Afterwards we came back home and I introduced Hannah to my newest show, Veronica Mars, which I unfortunately did not discover until after my fanhood wouldn't count to boost its ratings. But what a program! We watched until 0200 (much later than my regular bedtime) and then we decided that it would probably be a good idea to get some sleep. Sleep is good.

More of the Same

I spent the night at Grandma Gerie's last night. I took her to the DMV this morning at 0800. I advise everyone who lives in Utah *not* to go to the DMV on Wednesdays because that's the day that all the CDL people go get their licenses.

I mowed the front lawn and clipped a bunch of giant flower stalks. Hemlock? I'm not sure what they're called. But they have a tendency to shed slivers all over while you're clipping them down. That was kind of obnoxious.

I'm spending the night again and helping Grandma with more yard work tomorrow. We're also going to go see Aubriel's play. That should be fun.