Fish out of water

Yesterday was an overwhelming day. Today was much more manageable.  I was so tired yesterday I went to bed at 9.  However, Connor had a fever from school and kept waking up and crying.  Poor thing, I think he might be teething because he is drooling a lot.  One nice thing about the creche here is they will give Connor his fever reducer medicine and not make him go home if he gets better with the medicine.  In Florida, the daycare would make us take him home and then not allow him to come back for 24 hours even if he's better.  So, you already lose 2 days, which is hard when both parents work. Michael took Connor to the doctor yesterday and he has some kind of virus and the doctor just said to keep using the fever reducers and it should go away on its own.  I really like the creche we put him in because his caregivers really seem to care about him.  They feed him breakfast, morning snack, lunch (they call it dinner here), and a tea snack.  They also provide milk and water.  The only thing I need to bring is change of clothes and diapers.  It is so much easier here than in Florida.

Yesterday, I got to work at 8 am because I had a meeting at 8:30am.  I was the first one in the office.  People started straggling in at around 8:20 and 8:30 and only because they were attending the meeting too.  People really don't get to work until 9 am.  I got a few project assignments yesterday and it was a lot of overwhelming information. I had to talk to three different people to get background on the projects and it was too much to take in at one time.  People here will say, Oh, its probably the same as how you did it in the US.  And internally, I think, No, no, its not. 

Today was better, I made a list of things to do and prioritized my tasks. I did some research on client questions that were passed on to me and found the answers.  Things are called different names than in the US here so I have to do research to figure out what they are talking about and then I realize, Oh, that's what they are asking about and then tackle the question.  Hopefully it will get easier as I go through a few assignments. I feel like a lone wolf sometimes and constantly ask people (usually the same poor two people) questions.  I don't know if they get annoyed that I keep bothering them, but I'll never learn otherwise.

I went to lunch today with a girl who is also from the US and in the same function as me.  I am so glad that I went to lunch with her.  She had already been in the Dublin office for 9 months but she shared some insights and we were able to compare notes about differences we noticed.  It made me feel that I was not alone or crazy.

Something interesting is that the paper here is longer than in the US. So, folders and binders have to be longer.  If you have holes on the sides of your papers, it will be two holes or four holes but not three. I have a hole puncher that only punches two holes.  I had the hardest time figuring that thing out.

I think I am having a harder time than I anticipated because I like feeling confident in my knowledge and always being prepared.  Being thrown into an environment where I constantly feel unsure is very frustrating to me.  I'm also the hardest person on myself so I have to take a step back.  I have only been working for 4 days.  I can't expect to know everything at this point.  OK, enough rambling from me.  TGIF tomorrow!! 

This is what my hole puncher looks like.




Hmm, maybe I should invest in this paper. Might make things more interesting. :-p