Before I go on, I'd like to preface my whine with one important point of interest: the actual getting of this one-week temp job involved jumping through hoops any sane person wouldn't bother with for a full-time, $40K salaried gig. It was only because it sounded much more interesting than the usual insurance sales/call centre lackey jobs that you'll find in this uptight town that I strove to increase my patience and tolerance levels to include the exploits of this highly scattered company.

Basically, it involves me being a Research Assistant in the health care field. This position centers almost exclusively around the use of a palm, something I'm very familiar with (hello, S@ny Clie!). It requires me to follow a Case Manager, documenting their every move while keeping to the shadows. Keeping quiet isn't something I'm terribly good at and, it turns out, neither is my CM. So one of my major concerns is turning out to be less of an issue, thank heavens. The other is the sheer volume of information we had to digest and be able to manipulate over such a short period of time. By the end of the day yesterday (our Dry Run), I was much more comfortable with the whole process.

However, throughout this whole thing I've had the most mind-crushing stress headache you could imagine. I'm so sensitive that it takes the mere possibility of a job to cause me to have to operate at a level 50% lower than usual. My neck cramps up, my eyes become sensitive to light and I'm distracted enough by the pain that new people I meet have no choice but to view me as some odd duck they have to deal with like it's a chore instead of kicking back and enjoying my many endearing quirks and slightly warped humour. Sad, really.

I'm going to gently creep above the recommended dosage of my Advil Migraine pills and see if I can keep the dragons at bay. Wish me luck.

Posted at 3:06 p.m.