The girl with many jobs.. and a KILLER headache

I have become the go-to girl in my office for most minor tasks and 'additional duty assignments'. It keeps my pretty busy, which is a good thing since there is nothing else to do here but work, sleep, eat (if you're a fatty), workout (to keep from becoming a fatty), and pray that the Internet connection is strong enough to call home. Before I explain my jobs and make you think I am terribly over worked, and under paid (I won't argue there!) I need to balance it out by acknowledging the positives. First, many jobs means that I get to mix it up and do 4-5 different types of things throughout the day. That really helps to protect my sanity from the monotony of working 7 days a week, 12-14 hours a day. Second, when I am trying to keep track of 6 different projects I am too busy to dwell on how much I miss my family. My father advised me to stay busy and he was right; having hours to spend sitting in your room makes you acutely aware of how terrible the Internet connection is, how hard it is to hold any semblance of a conversation with someone back home, and just how unlike home your living conditions really are. Don't worry though, I haven't had more than an hour and a half of uninterrupted free time since getting here. Sleep, hygiene and trying to find time for 3 meals a day takes up 90% of the time that I'm not working. Finally, being the go-to girl not only helps me to broaden my skills on topics that I had previously known little about but it also proves my abilities to my boss(es) and shows me that they acknowledge that and trust that I will get it done.

Alright, enough of the positive and reassuring stuff, I'll get to what everyone really likes to read about: drama, conflict and a little bit of whining!

We'll start out with conflict- My major conflict right now is with my devil-contraption of a bed! The solid metal torture device that doubles as a bunk bed frame is built at just the right dimensions, that I smack my head every time I do anything. I'm not kidding, my head is a mass of bruises and I'm about one good smack away from giving myself a concussion! When I sit upright in my bed I crack it on the railings that stick out from the top bunk, when I roll over to the edge of the bed I smack it on the random handles that are on the sides and when I'm not even in my bed, I often drill the top bunk with my forehead or elbow as I am changing shirts! It's starting to get a little ridiculous, so I am excited that we will be moving into our permanent housing in a week or two. It has progressed from rumor to fact, because all of the guys in our unit are now in 'hard-structure housing' and we're just waiting for the female versions to open up for us to move. When we do move I will get a few feet more space, and I have a 50/50 chance of getting a non-bunk bed, so hopefully I stop getting bruises!

That concludes my "KILLER headache and conflict" chapter, so I'll begin Chapter 2: Workplace Drama and Whining.

As most of you know, I joined the army with bright ideas of what I would be doing on a daily basis. I worked hard and was selected for my branch (job path) of choice and did well at the specialty school. Now here I am at my very first unit, on my very first deployment and I'm not doing anything that I trained for! Instead I am working in personnel and oh by the way the big boss made me his adjutant, which is a flowery and sugar-coated way to say personal assistant. So on top of my assigned job duties (which include all things personnel and human resources), I get to manage his calendar, schedule meetings for him, look up random forms and facts for him and plan all of the random events he wants to have. For example, yesterday I planned and narrated our Patch Ceremony (a patch ceremony is where the boss officially allows you to wear the combat patch of the unit). Definitely not what I envisioned when I was a senior in college, day dreaming about the wonderful world of the gainfully employed! Oh and did I mention that my bosses boss likes to fly down and visit us about twice a month, and he wants ME to plan his itinerary and office calls while he's here, even though he has his very own entourage.. Makes perfect sense, right?

That's extra job numero uno. Numero dos is the Field Ordering Officer. As Field Ordering Officer I am the person that is able to buy emergency items off the local economy if we need them. In theory it sounds like a very important and vital job, and for some units it is. For us however, it's not. So that means that I got to attend hours of training, jump through 6 hoops and write out appointment orders just so that when my boss gets asked by his boss if they've got one, he can check the box. I mean I didn't really have anything else to do with those hours of my life anyway..

Additional job number three: this is my favorite one- Unit Historian.

Yep.

I did some research and attended the first meeting and to sum it up for you, I now have to pester people about what they have done for the last 3 months, what they're currently doing and what they think they are going to be doing for the next 6-9 months and then I get to compile it all and write papers on it. For those of you that don't know, I didn't major in history in college, far from it! My major required me to write about 6 papers in the entirety of the time I was there and they were about things like Nagleria Fowleri. Which is an amoeba that will kill you in about 48 hours if it passes through the protective mucus membrane in your nose and gets to your brain.

I am not excited to take on this task. Don't get me wrong, I love reading and I fully support the idea of documenting what we're doing it, AS it's happening. I just know that I am not the right person for the job! I will do a good job, but I won't enjoy it like I know someone else could/would. I'm just not the type of person that wants to write a dry recounting of events. As you can tell, I like to put my own spin on things and inject my opinion everywhere!

Additional job number four is probably my favorite, as much as an extra chore can be considered that.. It's the Public Affairs representative. So I get to either take pictures or coordinate for other people to take pictures at all of our events and throughout the day. In my case it's almost all coordination and hardly any actual picture taking because I'm too busy with my other jobs (like planning the events and writing the histories of said events), then uploading the pictures, editing them, submitting the good ones up higher, posting some on social media and creating story boards and newsletters for everyone to see the wonderful things that we do.

All I can say after getting my hands in all of these projects is Thank God I was indecisive and curious in college! Thankfully I have experience with PAO tasks, I asked questions about logistics, I managed Distinguished Visitor's itineraries and planned events. All of that makes this work fun (mostly) and not overwhelming!

From here on out I'm going to try to remember that even though this isn't what I signed up to do, it's helpful in ways I might not be aware of yet. At the end of the day it's a job, it keeps me busy, and hey, I get to take pictures and play on photoshop sometimes :)