It’s My New Job, I Can Cry if I Want To

“I’m not back, I’m better.” - Sha'carri Richardson

Twice I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. It was easy and super fun.

“You know, I’m actually excited for my first day of work tomorrow,” I said to my wife last Sunday night. That’s because currently, my life includes a lot of wandering around aimlessly watching the clock hands move in a circle while not getting anything done or accomplishing my goals because I really don’t even know what goals to pursue. I try to move forward but a constant undertow of ‘if I could just go back to climbing into a fire engine and speeding off to emergency, everything would be okay and I would be whole again.’ Since retiring my life has become all about doing laundry, running errands, walking Harriet on the same old boring walk because it gets way too hot to go anywhere by 8:00 am, keeping Harriet entertained and fed not too early, figuring out what to feed myself, and stepping in and out of maybe I will do this or perhaps I will do that—because I can’t decide which one is the best one. I don’t know how to get to either of those places anyway. Why figure out how to get somewhere if I don’t know where I want to go? So instead, I’ll check my Instagram and email and play a few games of solitaire, and then a few more games of solitaire. I also spend a lot of time looking for my glasses, but I’m sure most people over fifty do too. And then there’s another issue, my pension* (which I am VERY grateful for) pays the bills, but not many extras. I spent most of my money getting my book out in the world (that’s a whole additional Substack post, The Cost of Getting a Book Published and Getting People to Buy it.) So when my MBBFF (Most Bestest Best Friend Forever) said, “Come work for me.” I thought Hell ya! Her office is only ten minutes away and who doesn’t want to hang out with their MBBFF all day? She said, “You’ll be a staff accountant. You’ll need to learn Excel but you can take a class.”

My MBBFF is a partner in a global forensic accounting firm. I have always been insanely proud of her as that takes a lot of work and smarts to become a partner in such a company. It’s also something that I never, in a million years, could even remotely consider doing. I have often expressed my extensive fear and loathing of the Excel spreadsheet. I’m the person who if I need a chart with rows and columns, instead of making a spreadsheet on the computer, I shit you not, I’ll pull out a blank piece of paper, a pen, and a ruler—usually a straight edge of a book or whatever is laying around on my desk—and make the rows and columns by hand. I’m not even kidding. I’m impressed with anyone who can use Excel but I truly marvel at someone who has made Excel their bitch. Accountants make Excel their bitch. (Normally I detest that word, but I can’t think of another, more fitting sayings for this occasion.)

One of the reasons I have been hired is because her office is drowning in work. One of the problems when you are so good at your job, you have a lot of clients. Hurricane Beryl is causing a ‘hurricane’ of work for them. On my first day of work, I was asked to arrive at 10:00 am. At 9:50 I walked into my BFoss’s (BFF+Boss) corner office with a third-story view and found her still on a call. Her desk is made up of two plastic folding tables pushed together in the middle of the room. She hasn’t had time to get real furniture in her office. As I waited for her to finish her call, I gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows and at the traffic moving through the major intersection, just outside her office. My brain started its thing—if a major car wreck happens, as I’m heading down the closest stairwell (which of course I have already identified,) I’ll call the direct line to 911, tell them how many cars, and whether or not it looks like they’ll need extrication. Once I get to the accident, I’ll assess how many ambulances they will need, confirm needing extrication or not, mitigate any hazards the best I can, and then attend to the injured. I am yanked out of my accident scene and back into the room when I hear my BFoss say, “Ok great I’ll talk to you next week.” She pulled out her earbuds and said to me, “Good morning! Your brand spanking new computer actually just showed up.” We head into my new office and on my desk is a laptop with a dongle, a keyboard, and two large computer monitors. I’ve never worked in an office. Wait, that’s a lie, when I crushed my finger with a sledgehammer at work and was put on light duty, I worked in our department’s admin office. On a follow-up appointment with the hand doctor, I begged him to release me back to full duty. He said, “Well, it’s healed enough so you won’t damage it, but I have to say it’s going to hurt.” I said, “I don’t care. Get me out of the office - I need to get back in the field.” He replied, “You firefighters and cops are all the same. You’re always desperate to go back.” So other than that stint, I’ve never worked in an office. Also, my new work computer is a PC— I’ve been a Mac girl for as long as they’ve been in existence because they are so easy to use and rarely have any problems. That and my younger brother is a Mac computer wiz so whenever I can’t figure something out, which was quite often, I call him.

We She got my computer and corresponding monitors set up and told me to take care of my new-hire emails. Ten minutes later my computer shut off. Then it came back on. Where in the fuck did my email go? After about five minutes of clicking on yellowish folder-looking things on my screen, I found it. Then ten minutes later my computer shut off again and restarted itself only to shit shut down again. “HEEELLLP!” I yelled. My BFoss yelled back, “Really?” Then my computer mysteriously came back on so I yelled, “Never mind- I’m ok.”

I finished the new hire training about cyber security and all the different rules that need to be followed in different countries. My BFoss came into my office to show me how to set up jobs and make project sheets and save them in this folder and always work off our server not over here and…omg how am I going to remember all this? To me, a server is someone who pours my beer at a bar—and so many words are being said that I don’t know what they mean. I quickly felt the tears building from the back of my eyeballs. She left me to do my thing and about thirty minutes later I got stuck and had to ask for help. She walked in and answered my questions and I started crying again. “Promise me you’ll still think I’m great even though I can’t seem to figure out what in the hell I am doing,” I said attempting to fight back tears because that is the last thing she needs right now. She said, “Of course. Don’t be silly,” and went back to her office. For the few next hours, I kept slogging my way through a couple of project sheets while fighting back tears. I felt like these things were taking me way longer than they should. I ate my lunch at my desk because, well, I had work to get done.

Once I was done with the project sheets I walked into her office, longingly gazed out at the huge intersection, and said, “Hey I am done with everything. Is there anything else I can do for you?” My BFoss said, “Can you schedule out this PNL for me?” I answer, “Ummm sssuurrrre. Ya yes.” What is a PNL and what kind of schedule does it need? She printed out a piece of paper and handed it to me. The top of the page said ‘Phancy Enterprises, LLC Profit & Loss’ with all kinds of numbers and lines in neat rows and columns below. OOoohhhh it’s P&L, not PNL. While having the word ‘fancy’ spelled ‘phancy’ was 100% in my vernacular, that entire day had been like being lost in a foreign country where I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. I sat there staring at my two computer screens and again, started crying. I can’t fucking do this. I don’t even know where to start. Before this day, when I’d hit a moment like this, I’d close the metaphorical computer and say fuck it. When anything Excelish or technologically confusing crosses my path, a pinball starts pinging all around the inside of my skull faster and faster until it’s pinging so fast, I have to shut the whole thing down to gain back control. For example, I hired someone to help me market/publisize my book. She set up a spreadsheet for me to fill in—so I quit her. My brain just isn’t wired for that kind of absurdity. But this time, through tears, I decided to slow the pinball down instead of just shutting it down. I can’t just walk out of here and quit. My MBBFF needs me and I need this. So I overrode my fear of ruining everything and just started with one cell at a time. (That’s Excel lingo in case you didn’t recognize it.) I got through a large chunk of the P&L schedule before it was time to go home.

On my second day after being at work for a couple of hours, I heard the wailing of fire engine sirens. Multiple fire engines sirens. Oh man, they are headed to a structure fire. After being in the business for many years, I can tell what they are responding to. It’s the way they ride the mechanical siren and the air horn. (If you are curious as to what I mean, drop a note in the comments.) I couldn’t help myself so I opened my Pulse Point app on my phone and saw, sure enough, they were responding to an apartment fire. Immediately my eyes begin to well up. Once again I couldn’t help myself and I turned on the app’s scanner feature to listen to the radio traffic. My BFFoss appeared in the doorway and excitedly asked, “Whoa what’s going on??!!” I replied, “It’s an apartment fire.” I said while failing to shut down the tears and swallow the lump in my throat, “When am I going to stop only wanting to be a firefighter?” She said, “I don’t know. When am I going to stop constantly missing my dogs?” (She REALLY loved her two dogs, Bonnie and Clyde.) Tears ran down my face the entire fifteen minutes I listened until they got the fire knocked down. I want to be there but I am here. Through this whole process, I’ve learned it’s all about grief. About an hour later I heard more “structure fire” sirens. I looked on my app and sure enough, I was right, they were headed to a house fire not too far away. I decided not to listen to the radio traffic this time.

For the rest of that day, when that ball began to ping around in my head and the tears began to well up, I knew that this time I had to figure it out. There is no more shutting it down and walking away.

On my drive to the office, I pass a fire station. I’ve driven past this station a thousand times. The next day driving to the office the fire station grabbed my attention like never before. I really saw it and……I started crying. When life gets tough, my brain immediately creates the thought that if I could just go back to work, I wouldn’t need anyone or anything. I put my uniform on, climb in that engine as the garage door motor spins and lifts the loud, metal garage door, put my headset on, and pull into the street with the mechanical siren and air horn blaring. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me or if anyone loves me or if there’s some project I don’t want to do. On that engine, I was needed right then and I did something that mattered. I got to constantly drop everything and go. And when I say everything I mean everything. But now, by finally moving through everything that for my whole life has made me quit and run in the other direction, something has shifted. My brain and heart and throat and stomach have finally moved on. All the parts of me have finally let go of that job. I can stand and exist in the middle of everything.

I have often heard that “When one door closes, another one opens,” but never realized how that first door has to be closed all the way in order for the second door to open. I thought that door to the firehouse had been closed, but I never let it latch shut. Somehow, getting this new job with the conditions just right, allowed that door to completely shut and another door finally opened. All this has been so hard but it’s also been the best thing to happen to me in a long time.

I’m sure there will be more on all this later, but right now I have some phancy Excel spreadsheets to slay.

* I would just like to note that 11% of every paycheck went towards my pension so it’s not just for “free.” Some departments have their firefighters pay 20% of their paycheck towards their pension. I’m not complaining one single bit - just giving out some information.

I’d love to hear from you or even just click that little heart - it will warm my own heart to know I’m not just talking to the air. Thank you for reading!!!!! Writing brings me so much joy!!