I don't know what to say

I work. Chuckles has been a good sport. He has a best friend at pre-school. The kid's name is Roland. I know "Chuckles" is an odd name for a kid, but Roland seems even odder. And he told me that a girl named "Megan was crying so her mommy came and took her home."

My job is odd. It requires unbelievable knowledge of the French language, which I happen to have but did not realize was requisite for the position (OK< class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">unbelievable, but it's enough). All the software and documentation that I use are in French. And all my tech support people are in Paris (must call by 10 am or they are no longer in).

There is no one to train me and no one in my area knows how to sent inter-office mail. I guess they fax everything. And, when I got my computer, I had almost 200 emails waiting for me. They set up my email box and started cc'ing me on things two weeks before I started. I got my laptop and cell phone a Thursday. Apparently, I need to be in contact with my french software 24/7, which is fine since I was given permission for remote access of everything.

So, I guess it's just back to the grind. Nothing seems out of the ordinary to me. As I tell people, it's the same everywhere (and I guess I am only referring to heavy manufacturing, because for all I know working at a law firm or software company could be totally different....do you do Lock Out/Tag Out training for OSHA at law firms? Do you get daily safety contacts? Do you talk about fall protection and tying off when working on scaffolds?).

My office is out-of-the-way up some stairs in an abandoned computer room. It is about 160 steps to the ladies room. I must don a hard hat to run to the potty. It's quiet up there (and dark, too...I contacted maintenance about getting some light bulb service...do you know how long it takes to figure out who to call for that when you are brand-new? Answer: 2 hours) and very chilly since there is a super heavy duty AC unit to handle the heat generated by the computer equipment. It was dirty, but I used some cleaner and heavy duty wipes and got it to the point where I would set my purse on the desk.

The job itself seems OK. I just hope they don't expect too much from me right away. It took four hours for me to install one piece of software today to my laptop because there was no documentation and I mapped the wrong network drive. Who knows how many more of these gaffes I will have (oh and my erreur messaged were coming up en francais, which made troubleshooting the database problem THAt much more fun).