My fabulous new accountant walked into the house this afternoon right when I was on the phone being assertive to the decidedly unfabulous new optometrist’s office. Oops, way to make a good first impression there, bonehead.

As an aside, how cool and scary is it that I need an accountant now? But I got way in over my head there, and it’s better to pay someone to do it right.

The reason I was being assertive is a long and irritating story. My good eye doctor moved from his convenient Costco location, and I was out of contacts and past my prescription date. So I was handed a flier at the doctor’s office one day for a new optometrist located right there. How convenient that would be! It’s right on my site; I can sneak away during the day and zip in when I needed to.

So I did that one day last week. I went in to see if they had an appointment and what the charge was for a contact lens exam, thinking I’d make one for later. The girl at the desk told me it was $49 and would I like to be seen right then? Since the waiting room was empty, I figured I might as well get it over with.

The hesitant technician was something that I could live with, but a quick exam turned into an hour-long exam right off the bat. My old doc never took more than about half an hour once I was in the chair. I didn’t have time to mess around with having my eyes dilated, since I had to go back to work, so I paid my bill (the entire amount, as I am self-insured for optometry) and promised to come in the next day after work for the dilation part. I made an appointment for such and everything.

The next day, I got in there, and the waiting room was almost standing-room only. I sat there. I read every damn magazine in the place. I watched the clock. Finally, after an hour in which no one ahead of me was called in either, I got up and went to the desk. I said, very politely, that I was not going to wait any longer, that I would skip the eye dilation part, and could I please have my prescription. I was not going to buy contact lenses there after all of that; I would just go to Costco. At no point was I rude to any of the staff. I was hustled into the glasses room, where I explained that I did not have time to wait for the other half of an appointment, and eventually got my written prescription.

As I left, a guy raised his eyebrow at me. I asked how long he’d been waiting, and he said three hours. Oh yes, I made the right call there.

And so the story ended, I thought.

Until I got a bill in the mail today. Now, remember that I paid in full the entire amount that she quoted me, after verifying the amount twice. Now, I was suddenly liable for over $200 more? I think not.

I started calling, and eventually got someone in billing. She said that there was an exam fee of thirty dollars, which, if paid, would waive the rest of the fee. I was quite clear that that was not the amount which I was quoted, and that I wasn’t going to pay it. That didn’t even make sense. Where was the rest of the two hundred coming from? She tried to tell me that there was a $150 exam fee also, which I completely balked at. Which is it? $30 or $150? And why on earth would you expect me to pay either? Neither amount added up to the amount on my invoice.

She kept insisting that if I paid the smaller amount, the larger amount would be waived. I carefully explained to her that when one walks into a business establishment and asks the price of a service, one expects the price of the service to remain consistent. She then threw out the old, “well, I can’t verify what anyone said,” act. At that point my poor accountant was standing uncomfortably in my living room, so I dropped it. I told her that she could expect me to never darken their doorstep again, which I’m sure broke her heart, since she must think I’m some sort of scam artist. But I’m not; had I been quoted that full price at the beginning, I would have either paid it or walked out and found my old doctor’s new practice.

She tried to condescend to me that I can’t expect an exam for free. Oddly, I did not expect an exam for free; I expected one for the price which I had been quoted. I fail to see the difference between “exam” and “contact lens exam” or why one would need to be charged for both. Especially since due to their own poor scheduling, I didn’t even get the full exam. Oh no lady. You do not talk down to me. 

She thinks I’m paying the $30. I may, just to keep my credit report clean, as it’s cheaper than taking them to small claims court over it. But you can be damned sure that I will go down, pay it in person, and insist on a receipt that shows my account as being completely paid off. I will never recommend their services, and boy do I talk to a lot of people in the area. And for the record, I believe that Castle Optometry is extremely poorly managed and unprofessional, from the receptionist yapping to her friends on her cell phone in the waiting room and hollering incoming phone calls across the building to her coworkers, to the eye doctor who didn’t even make a token appearance at my exam, leaving me with a clearly inexperienced technician who couldn’t figure out how to operate a sliding catch on a piece of equipment. Never again.

I like this new job and there are parts of that I especially like. I always liked going through the old buildings. I was looking for specific things, but it was interesting; it’s no less interesting now that I’m looking for different specific things.

But I find some oddball stuff, in my lookings. The mummified fox in a third-floor mechanical room was interesting. He was a little too held together to take the skull, but I may someday in the future.

On Monday, I just missed bumbling into trouble. I pulled up to the next building on my list to find the electricians and a deputy there. Seems they had just rousted a homeless guy, and he’d left his belongings under the stairwell. Which, of course, I’d have gone right up, all by myself, and wouldn’t I have just been scared shitless if a person popped up out of that mess? Those buildings are spooky enough without actual people haunting them. The hair was up on the back of my neck for that whole building, even though the electricians stayed after the deputy left.

And today, I pulled up to what’s little more than a concrete structure left. There was a car there, and I looked for people before I went on to the next door building, but didn’t think much of it when I didn’t find any. That’s a fairly common spot for dog walkers and joggers to park, although it was oddly pulled behind the building and out of sight to most people.

When I finished the one I was doing and went on to the skeletonized one, I heard voices. I froze, well outside of it, and waited. Soon enough two people came out, talking to each other, a man and a woman. My first thought, on seeing the woman, was, “we have hookers here?” She was dressed extra-skanky, with some backless top and high boots. But everyone was clothed, and man, would that be an uncomfortable and weird place to get it on.

The man reached down into a bag that I hadn’t noticed before. If I’d been a little more alert, that might have frightened me, but it turned out to be a camera that he pulled out. A monster camera, quite a bit more expensive than mine. He said they were shooting for her portfolio, and she didn’t look like she was there against her will. I thought about it, and I’m sure they could see the wheels in my head turning over whether they belonged there or not. Eventually I decided that they did not, but since I also decided that they weren’t hurting anything, I didn’t stop them. As I circled the building, I saw more photography equipment; I guess he was going for some sort of ‘edgy’ or ‘urban decay’ look, and I suppose I can’t blame him for that. I’ve photographed that building myself, after all. It has neat lines. But then, I belong there.

I wish that I could send the dog in ahead of me like I used to. He’s good for that, an early warning system if nothing else, but I don’t think Angus would let creepy homeless sqatters get me. Ringo might; he’s a big weenie. But it’s too hot for them to sit in the back of the truck while I’m in my office, and I haven’t really felt out the permissiveness of this new place regarding dogs on site.

So I suppose I’ll just keep my head up, and my big Maglite, and completely skip the two buildings that give me the raving horrors. Probably the worst that I’ll find will be dead cats and a swarm of bees, or maybe a skunk, but I can get along all right with any of those.

No horror movies for me until I’m done though. As if I ever watch those anyway!

LL wrote this morning about not being cool, and man, did that hit a nerve with me.

Dennis asked me to come to the Cotton Festival last night and photograph his girlfriend singing. She and her partner are doing quite well with their singing career, and I like to go listen to them, but I like to have a job to do even more. So I went down, hoping Cowboy would be there too (he wasn’t) and brought my camera with me.

It got too dark to take decent pictures pretty soon, which I was afraid of. I don’t have any fancy flash equipment, although I’d like to get some, but it wouldn’t reach out and touch someone as far as a zoom lens does anyway.

While I was getting to stay busy and have a job, I felt decent. I went and got myself a nice big burrito, took some photos while I could, and chatted up the few people I still know there. But my only real friend was busy being a roadie, and since he grew up in that town, he knows absolutely everyone and was talking to them all. I can only follow him around so long before I start to feel like I’m looking really pathetic.

So I end up sort of standing by myself, feeeling extremely awkward. I’m generally OK with going places by myself, but it turns out that I’m really only that brave when I have something to do with my hands. Take away my job, and I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I am by no meas cool enough to go show up as a complete stranger and make fifteen friends before last call. I know people like that, and I know that I’m not one of them. Put me in such an uncomfortable position, take away my crutches, and I’m right back to being the gawky shy teenager that I once was, even if I’ve mostly grown out of the shy and the gawk. I’m still quiet, and I’m still not one for walking up to strangers, especially if they’re surrounded by their own friends. I just can’t do it.

So, since I didn’t want Dennis to feel like he had to babysit me all night, I just left. I considered going down to the bar since it was still early, but I’d already talked myself out of being any fun, so home it was. I didn’t feel that I could fake being cool even in my own environment, so it was best not to inflict my mood on other people.

And I dropped $20 out of my pocket on the way out to the parking lot too, and almost lost my license. Damn, and that happened the last time I went to see them sing – I’m going to have to start carrying my purse to these things, or else remember not to wear those pants. Those are definitely unlucky pants. And I am just not cool.

My first full week at the job, and for some reason I was more nervous than for the first few days. I spent those getting myself together administratively, putting together a list of what I need to get done and writing up a giant spreadsheet of existing data.

But today was the day that I had to get out there in the field and start filling in the unknowns on my table. The site’s been sitting unattended for ten years, so I have to go evaluate each building, each service connection, and each backflow preventer. It’s going to take me a good couple of months to get it all sorted out. In the interest of saving some time and really getting to know what I’ve got, I decided to test each backflow preventer right on the spot, rather than just noting them and going back to see if they work. That’s not really the way it’s done, but since I wear both the survey hat and the repairman hat, it made sense.

So I started with an easy one. I picked an empty building with a few irrigation services but no major industrial stuff and I went out and did my thing. The survey part is pretty easy, although I have to train myself to look for different things. Last time I went through these buildings, I was after environmental issues, and now it’s just water. I never had to trace pipes to a boiler or a cooler on the roof before, but it’s not rocket science and I can do it.

Once I got out to the testing part, that’s where it got interesting. Most of the units are not even legal any more, but if they pass a test, I can bump them a little lower on the priority list – we only get so much funding, and this rehab is going to take a few years. I’m finding that it was an Air Force policy to paint the shit out of these things though, and apparently nobody told the flunky doing the painting to not paint the threads – they’re there for a reason. And I’m sure not going to ruin the threads of my very expensive gauge trying to cram it onto an illegal installation anyway. So those are quick – a big fat FAIL and I’m done.

On my way out to one that’s made me roll my eyes for years, I was crossing a well-watered lawn. Since it was getting soggy, I took a step onto a valve box cover, thinking it would be a nice dry place to set my gauge. Not so! The box was actually so full of water that the lid was floating, and as soon as I stepped onto it, it shot out from under my foot like I’d stepped on one of the kids’ skateboard. My leg went down (and it was the bad one too) and the next thing I knew, I was standing about two feet shorter than I usually do, and my boot was taking on water. Well, shit. At least I didn’t break the valves or my leg.

I squished back to my truck after I failed that unit, dumped out my boot, and went on back in to the office to dry out a little. This office may not know what’s hit them – it might have been a better idea for me to office with the working guys, but that’s where the files I need are.

Once I recovered enough dignity, I went on to another building. This one had a bunch of units in assorted boiler rooms, and of course, they were all very spidery and about eight feet off the ground. Fine. I borrowed a ladder, strapped on my shiny new tool belt (which works wonderfully – why didn’t I think of this before?) and reached in past one to turn it on at the valve. And of course, that one had a major leak, which is why the valve was off in the first place, and equally of course, I was standing right underneath the leak. The first I knew of it was as it shot down my back, into my new toolbelt, and giving my pants a double dose of stinky water.

I hopped off the ladder, thought about it, and hopped back on to turn the valve off. I wasn’t going to get any wetter after all.

So, wet legs, squishy boot, wet shirt and tools. Dirty hands from ten years of dust and cobwebs, now wet. Sweaty head. Spiders. Barked knuckle.

And you know what? I really like this job.

No, not of my fantastic new job or anything important like that. Instead, I’m thinking about stopping my Project 365, after over 200 days of taking a photo every day.

I missed one and didn’t even notice last week, but it made me realize how much I’ve come to dread that end-of-day thought that I still had one more thing to do after a full day. Besides the creative slump I’ve been in, I just have too much on my plate right now to keep up with something that I decided to do on a whim.

The worst part was that it was starting to make me dread photography, and that was exactly not the point of the whole thing. The point was to document my world for a year and to make myself practice with the camera more often. It’s not worth the stress. I’m so overloaded that it only makes sense to cut out the expendable projects, and this is the first one to go.

I’m also probably going to minimize hunting this year, which kills me, but this is the year to pay my dues at the business. I’ll go a few times, and the trailer’s about all ready (except for the fridge, which freezes everything) but it’s going to be quite the hassle to get my backups in place. Who knows though; once that sorts out, I may find that the time away from the site is an essential.

I’m not giving my favorite things up forever; I’ll still drag my camera around most places with me, and in fact have agreed to photograph Dennis’ girlfriend singing next week (I told him my fee would involve him bringing his boss to the concert – Cowboy.) I’ll still take photos of things that interest me, but I won’t be snapping nonsense every day just to say that I had a picture for the day. There are only so many dog pictures I can stand to take anyway, although one good thing that came out of the project is that Ringo’s not really camera-shy any more.

I’ve just given myself permission to slack a little, is all, and the sense of lifting weight tells me that I did the right thing.

There, I’ve got that first week under my belt, even if it was a short one. I was right too; it is going to take me a bit to get back into the swing of being busy all day. I’ve done it before and I can do it again, but I’m fairly well wiped out tonight after three days of sitting in the office. But it was a busy sitting, for once.

I do see that I’m going to have to pace myself. My instinct is to dive in with as many feet as possible and get off to a good start, but that might raise the bar too high for later on. Once I get this site completely ironed out, a process I expect to take about six months, my day-to-day duties are going to be fairly light. And I don’t want them to compare that with a ball of fire earlier and decide that maybe I’m not worth my nice shiny pay rate after all.

But it’ll even out. I have enough to keep me fully occupied for a while, and once I start getting out in the field (next week) my pace will come back to me. I’m quite used to doing field work in the morning and coming in to write things up in the heat of the afternoons.

It is weird to have all of these people around though. My old office has only had the four of us regulars for several years now, and it’s funny to see new faces. I knew some of them before, which gives me a head start on names at least.

And I like my new office. I’ve got it all filled up already, and I can see that I probably won’t have enough bookshelves or room to put them even if I scrounge them. My manager rolled me down a chart table yesterday, that takes up much of the free space when I open it, but I’m going to need it.

I have an enormous shopping list going too. The smaller stuff may get bought this weekend, but I’ll wait to get a ladder and a shop-vac and a truck-mounted valve-actuator until I actually need them. But I have begun the search for the perfect tool belt, as it’s becoming clear that I’m going to have to be dragging my equipment into some awkward places. It’s surprisingly hard to find the right tool belt – they all seem to be made for carpenters, and I’m more of a plumber. Yes, it makes a difference. My tools are mostly longer.

And yes, I might model it for you, if you ask nicely, perhaps with a nice ensemble of steel-toed boots and hard hat?