Work... On a Friday Night.

Well, I guess it's about time to get this thing rolling and give "Blogging" a shot. Here I am, sitting in the fourth floor of a vacant building on a Friday night... again! I currently work for ITaP, which stands for Information Technology at Purdue. I started working for ITaP last November, right before the end of the semester. My job title is "Lab Assistant" which should actually be changed to "Printer Refiller and Homework Doer". They should just call it what it is, instead of making it sound like it's hard or something.



My career started with ITaP on a weekday evening at around 7PM. Orientation. Blah. ITaP orientation for a lab assistant was basically two hours of how to do this job, and how to submit a time-card, what you need to do to securely close and how to open a lab to make sure it is appropriately set up for classes in the morning. All of the responsibilities were pretty much covered in 1 hour, but we were getting paid for 2 hours. Why not cover it all again!? All of the information we needed to know for the job was drilled into our heads once again! "When are timecards Due?" "What do you do if someone is looking at inappropriate material in one of your labs?" "What do you do if your computer lab is on fire?!?" Yeah, we covered it all. Hey, at least we got paid for it, right?

Now that orientation was over, we were to email our supervisor with a day we would like to work our first shift. The first shift, they arrange someone to work along side you and show you how to clear printer jams and properly lock up the doors and such things. Because the semester was nearing the end, we were not given regular shifts. We were to use the online "Take hours" system to pick up shifts people subbed out, or take extra shifts that operations could use some extra help with. When the semester ends, we would email our availability to operations so we could have regular weekly shifts scheduled around our classes.

Well, after the usual "first day on the job" jitters and uneasiness, this job turns out to be one of the coolest college jobs you could have! I did happen to make the unfortunate mistake of providing ALL of my availability to them when I applied for the job. When someone applies to ITaP, they make you fill out a schedule spreadsheet with all of the weekdays blocked off into 30 minute boxes. You have to check when you have a class, and when you are available. Then when you are available, you assign a 3, 2, or 1 to each free chunk of time when you would prefer working... 1 being the time you prefer to have and 3 being the least desired. Last, you assign X's to all of the times you either don't want to work, or cannot work. I began the process by chunking off all of the times I actually had class. Then, I assigned X's to all of the times between 12am and 6am. I decided I liked the 7-11pm shifts from my month long "take hours" experiences, because it provided a good time to get some homework done after classes. Why not take those shifts because I would most likely be at home during that time doing homework regardless! I assigned 1's to all of the weekday 7-11pm slots, and 2's to all of the other free time I had between, before, and after classes.

Well, it turned out that time slot is pretty popular. A few weeks after I submitted my schedule request, i found out the wonderful news that my schedule was:

• Monday: 6:45am - 11am
• Wednesday: 6:45am - 11am
• Thursday: 7:00pm - 11pm (Yay!)
• Friday: 11:00pm - 2am

Figures, the only night I get the 7-11 shift, is one of the most popular nights to go out on campus to one of the bars for cheap drink deals. Most likely what happened is I got a 7-11 on that night because other people wanted to have the freedom to go out drinking on Thursday nights! Oh well, I don't really drink very much these days anyway, so it doesn't matter that much to me anyway. What does matter is the crappy Monday, Wednesday, and Friday shifts. I guess if you tell them you are available on the crappy shifts, they give you the crappy shifts...

All in all, I find a lot to complain about this job, but in reality I really really like it! Even though I have to get up at ungodly hours of the morning on Monday and Wednesday, and abstain from drinking and going out on Friday so I'm sober to work... the job does not ask very much of me. I just have to pretty much show up, and do 30 minutes of work. I figure that hopefully this job will improve my grades this semester AND I'll get a little extra money on the side. SWEET!