By far the biggest downside is the commute. The lab is about 80 miles from my home. However I think I'm making the most of it by splitting up the time. First of all, I'm only driving by myself for half of the distance, because I stop in Vacaville to pick up Erin (or get picked up by Erin, as we take turns). So from Vacaville to the lab and back I have her to talk to and it makes the ride go quickly and is certainly strengthening my already good friendship with her. And since I work only Tuesday through Thursday, she still has Monday and Friday to have some peaceful time to herself and listen to her audio books etc. I can appreciate that, because I probably spend roughly half of my own lone commute time listening to the audio book Jack got me for my birthday: An Early Start for Your Child with Autism. It's nice to finally get a chance to dig into a book, frankly. I haven't really read anything in depth since having kids.
I also spend a lot of the drive time in the evening calling people to catch up. In particular I've gotten to talk to Kale at least once a week, which is nice, and I've also caught up a bit with my sister-in-law, Josh, Reece, and others.
This week I managed to shorten the commute by trying a new schedule. On the way home, when we stop in Vacaville (either for Erin to drop me off at my car or vice versa), I go to a local Starbucks and get non-lab work done for about an hour and a half. I make a little extra money and by the time I leave the traffic has died enough that the commute is more like 50 minutes instead of 90. So that helps.
So that's the commute: a mixture of visiting time with Erin, phone visiting time with other friends/family, learning time with audio books, and in between getting a bit of extra paid work done too.
Meanwhile the job itself is great. I like all my coworkers, some of them particularly so, and they seem to like me well enough too. I like learning how to help and I'm eager to get tested on different procedures so I can start doing them without anyone having to supervise me (and thus free up their time to do their own work--evidence intake and outtake can be very disruptive). I'm enjoying meeting the regular clients who pick up and drop off evidence, most of whom seem very friendly. I'm really enjoying being back around forensics and learning about different cases and starting to just barely dip my toes in and see what the lab does. And as cherry on top, yesterday I learned there are some long-term evidence-related projects no one has had time to get to that I could take over. I'm glad for that because (a) it gives me something to work on when there's no incoming or outgoing evidence, which is the slowest time of day, (b) I get a lot of satisfaction out of organizing things which is what the projects pretty much entail, and (c) it will give me a chance to show my usefulness as the new person in the lab. I was so eager to get started I almost thought about asking if I could come in today (Friday) to keep working on it, but this job doesn't include that kind of flexibility, plus I want to save the projects for my down time during my regular hours.
So yeah, really enjoying the work so far. I hope maternity leave doesn't disrupt my progress too much but even so I'm sure I can get back on the horse.
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