Ganging agley. Again.

First day of the new assignment, as it turns out, wasn't so taxing.

When I showed up, I noticed that the managing editor was sort of avoiding eye contact and wincing ever so slightly, as if he wished I weren't there. Which is odd, because the managing ed (let's call him Jean-Luc) and I have an excellent working relationship. I admire his editing to bits and he admires my writing to bits, and, really, one can expect few more glorious symmetries in this lifetime. Plus, he's not only very dishy but overwhelmingly likely to be gay, which is the only possible way to have a work situation which is both professional and flirty.

All J-L would manage -- in response to anything -- was that I should talk with the Big Boss. Who was dodging phone calls and emails, so that I ended up going home early, in frustration. Late in the day, we (Big Boss and I) exchanged emails and he told me that my assignment wasn't quite actually approved, despite the fact that they'd told me otherwise, they'd had three weeks since that time to fix anything that might've come up, and I'd already left my old job.

Long story short, not because it's uninteresting, but because it's too painful to revisit, I spent two entire days doing nothing but waiting to find out the end result of hidden political machinations, spinning what-if plans (none of them particularly adequate), and feeling nauseated. Then, just as suddenly as it came up, the problem went away.

Sort of. Because the new office is moving to...well, a new office, and their current digs don't have room for me, my desk is, at the moment, in a different state (non-figuratively) than the rest of the team. Which makes it a little awkward to discuss photo crop options.

So, on my real first day of work (yesterday), I got a whirlwind tour of the content management system, discovered new CMSes are much easier to learn when one is in one's thirties than...er, not (a fact which, naturally, I credit to the increased complexity of the CMSes of today), and learned that my limited and inelegant tech skills are sorta kinda probably almost good enough for the job. Whew.

Today, not knowing what else to do, I researched historical critiques of our product and then sent up a fat idea-stuffed memo on how to address them.

I know, second day, right? Which, in the private sector, might sound like a self-congratulatory rhetorical question, but, trust me, in the context of government, means: How dumb was that?

I just can't seem to help myself.