Oooooh....Goodness...

So I started my new CPS job this last week and I feel like I've found my place! When it finally came down to it the night before I usually toss and turn and wake up with heartburn so bad, but this time I slept like a baby and have gotten up with enough time every morning I don't have to rush and I can even eat breakfast! So Monday was new employee orientation, total snoozefest, then the afternoon the 10 of us were sent off to meet our OJT/BSD (on the job training/basic skills development) supervisor. Basically it's a 12 week class (for investigators, 13 weeks for everyone else) about CPS and the different areas, it honestly feels like a college class with the amount of work that we have to do, but hey I'm being paid really well to just do this for 12 weeks...I'm so not complaining! I realized when we were sitting around there were 3 different areas the 10 of us were going into. Myself and the only guy in class will be investigators, a few of the girls will be Family Based Safety Services (the position they offered me and I didn't really want) and the rest will be going into Conservitorship (when the state takes custody of the kids they do that part). So we were going around the room and at least 3 of the girls all mentioned that investigation was their first choice but they got their second choice. Wow...I was chosen above all those people. I'm not being full of myself, I'm usually my worst critic and to hear that really makes me less hard on myself. So the first day I was assigned this uber expensive dell laptop/tablet thingy and a box of computer equipment I mostly know how to use. The second day I went to my home office and met my unit and the first thing they did was show me where my office is!!! I HAVE AN OFFICE, I've never had an office, I've had an ambulance, a desk, shared a radio console, but now...I have an office with a phone extension and a place to put my stuff...I'm totally jazzed. The second day I also got a cell phone and a camera, I've never had an employer trust me with so much expensive equipment so fast! My unit is way cool, the supervisor believes in bonding and spending time together and out of the 10 of us there is only one guy and the other girls chat about like gritty girl stuff, like me, totally opposite of the last place I worked...these girls think and talk LIKE ME!!! Today they bought me breakfast and we ate and bonded and giggled. After 3 years of feeling like I don't belong and don't fit in, finally I have a place where I fit in. I also have a mentor, she came and sat in my office (hehe) today and was talking to me about some of her cases just like I had been there for a while. Also there's the unit tech admin who can get anything you ask for. I feel almost like a battered wife, they come in asking me what they can order for me, get for me, what kinda tacos I like and I'm not used to it yet but I'm way happy, they are all happy and excited about coming to work which makes for a good workplace...thank you god!

The Beaverhausen