For Sanity's Sake!

Where, you might ask, has Kate been the last month? I, being Kate, can tell you. A month ago I took a temp job at a wealth management firm in Houston. I was hired to help the company go paperless. I was led into a file room and told my job was to prepare the files to be scanned into the company's new electronic filing system.

I shuddered, my knees felt weak, my heart skipped a beat, my stomach sank, and my right hand that has served me so well these almost *cough-cough* years seized in anticipation of the carpel tunnel it would have by the end of the project.

The picture above does not do it justice. A massive project. What you can't see due to the angle of the camera are three five-shelf cabinets to the left and behind me, and hidden by the rolling carts full of files in the middle of the room are three more four-shelf cabinets. All the shelves are stuffed to capacity with files, and paper, and what is fast becoming a swear word in Kate's vocabulary, staples.

Daunting is an understatement.

And, talking to the big boss today, he said when it's done, they would like me to stay and help prep the 'other' file room. I haven't seen it. I don't want to see it. I have been awakened in the middle of the night five nights in a row with terrible hand pain from removing staples for eight hours a day. I have never quit a job, I have never finished an assignment. This may be a first.

In order to help me keep my sanity in a room with no windows, I have taken to saving the post-it notes I take from the files and placing them in creative designs on the wall.

I give you, the sunburst!
(I realize it's a bit lop-sided, it is an on-going work and the picture was taken mid-way through the current layer.)

Next, the maze.

Notice the blue post-it near the floor. That is the start. You continue to follow the wall path until you reach the green post-it note...

...and then you hop over the door and continue.

This is also a continuous work, usually added to during my lunch break. There is another temp working on this project with me and she asked me how I was going to take it all down. My reply, "Who says I'm taking it down?".

At our current pace, we should finish all the files by the end of next week. I'm up to a rather large number of NPS applications for permanent and summer seasonal employment and I hope something comes soon.