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Three years away had caused rose-tinted glasses to drop before my eyes, but they were abruptly ripped off yesterday. Painfully. Argh.

It didn't help that I was going on three hours sleep after an especially brutal shift at the factory. That's what I'm calling it now. I know it's not a proper factory, but it may as well be. Same type of work. But I'll get to that later.

Anyway, as I was saying, I get home all sore and tired and manage a few hours before being woken by my sister. I shower and prop myself up on the couch, waiting for the onslaught. It arrives shortly thereafter, in the form of my dad's brother Ken and his fun wife Sue. I dpn't mind hanging out with the two of them alone; it's when you add Evil Grandma to the mix that it turns ugly. Luckily, we had a brief reprieve, as they had arranged to pick her up later. Woo!

So we ate munchies and chatted about stuff, mainly about me and Scotland, but I wasn't very verbose and did not mention the wedding at all. I figured I should wait till EG was there, because she would never forgive me otherwise. In the end, however, I didn't mention it all. Never. The timing just never seemed right, you know? I couldn't just blurt it out at the dinner table after a few hours. If I had a grand announcement, I should have made it earlier in the day. And that's probably one of the grandest announcements you can make.

Once grandma was over, the troops took their respective positions - me, Ken, dad and EG in the living room trying to extract pained conversation; mom, Sue and sis in the kitchen gossiping, getting drunk, giggling and generally having a grand old time. Oh, how I longed to join them! But I couldn't. I was obligated to sit and keep company in the living room. It's become my role and I hate it. HATE IT! I sat there seething, most of my wrath directed at my sister. Why does she get out of all this? Why am I the one appointed to deal with the evil one?

Eventually we sat down to dinner. There was so much food, and I wasn't really hungry. My appetite has been all sorts of fucked up since I took the job and my eating schedule got all sorts of switched around. My sister had made egglant parmesan especially for me, and I barely touched it, which pissed her off. Too bad.

After dinner, we were expecting to play one of Sandy's new board games. As grown up as she pretends to be, she is still an annoying little kid at heart when it comes to board games. In fact, it's the primary reason she volunteers at the local children's hospital. All day she had been going on about how we had to play a game with her and we all relunctantly acquiesced. Yet when we assembled in the living room to play, she announced she was taking a nap, and settled down in the recliner with a blanket. What a selfish bitch! Why is she allowed to be completely anti-social like that? Especially since I'm the one who had no sleep and was struggling to stay awake! I wanted to slap her, I really did. I don't know how she gets away with such things. Regardless, I struggled to stay awake for the remaining hour or so, then collapsed into bed as soon as everyone left, squeezing in another few hours before having to return to work.

My mother had to actually shake me awake, though, I was so deep in slumber. Usually the sound of a pin dropping with jar me awake, so I must have been really out of it. I was dazed and confused when I got to work, which was no good as I kept messing up. Ack! Not a good impression to make so early in the game. But then again, the fact that it was only my third day probably excused most of my stupidity. Besides, what are they going to do, fire me? Unlikely.

So yeah. The job. It's not too too bad, but it has it's moments. Namely after a few hours doing the same two tasks, on my feet, sore. Actually, being on my feet for eight hours hasn't been as bad as I thought. Sure, I can barely walk at the end, but I seem to heal very well and return refreshed. I know it'll get easier as time progresses as well. By the end of that six months I worked two jobs - on my feet for 12 to 14 hours! - I barely noticed any pain at all.

So that's been okay. And the tasks at hand wouldn't be as bad if there was more variety. On the first night, they put me on the automated sorter machines for the first 5 hours or so, then after lunch I got to do some hand sorting, which allowed me to sit and work at my own pace. I quite liked it, and was good at it.

My co-workers are quite a motley crew. As you probably imagined, there are some weird people in the postal service, many of whom work these unsocial shifts. On the first day, I got paired off with this big guy named Roy, who was not very friendly and really shit at training me. He basically explained nothing. Showed me how to feed mail into the machines - pretty easy stuff actually - and mentioned how it sometimes jams.

"Well, what do I do if it jams?"

"You fix it."

"How do I fix it?"

"You'll see."

Gee, thanks. I was kinda hoping it would jam then and there so he would be on hand to show me, but of course it didn't do it until he had left me there working on my own (in remarkably short time actually). When it did, I had to go fetch him, and he silently, slowly, ambled over to fix it, which involved opening the machine up and fiddling about inside, a very daunting prospect for a clueless girl like me. That's apparently what he thought, because he didn't explain what he was doing at all, at any point actually. The machine kept jamming and he kept coming over to fix it.

Later, we were moved to another machine, this one even bigger. Let me describe it to you. It's really, really long, the length of a very large room. On one end is the place you feed the mail. The rest of it has slots, about 50 of them, where the mail spits out. One person has to feed the mail, which involves lifting heavy trays of letters, placing it on a table, then placing it into the machine, all addresses facing the same way, at a pretty rapid rate. Another person has to empty all the slots into other trays, which involves a lot of running up and down the length of the machine. Conveniently enough, the slots at either end fill up the fastest and require the most frequent emptying. Once a tray is full, it must be carried to another section, and a new tray must be collected and labeled and put into place. It's quite an operation, and both tasks are equally tiring.

Big helpful Roy was just as shit explaining the second task as he was the first. He basically just told me to grab the mail and put it into trays. He didn't explain the safety catch mechanism which helps ensure my fingers aren't chopped off by the two scary rotating wheels at the end of each slot. I was so paranoid as I carefully removed each bundle of mail. It wasn't until my supervisor came round to check on me and absentmindedly started helping empty some slots nearby that I noticed how he did it, properly. D'oh!

The second machine kept jamming as well, to the point where it was stopping every five minutes and was becoming quite problematic. The jam kept happening at the very end slot, where I was stationed. And again, instead of showing me how to fix it, Roy hobbled down slowly each and every time to do it himself, wasting much time and energy. Eventually, a supervisor came round to see why it was breaking down so much and when it jammed again directly in front of me, and she came down to fix it, she said "You know, next time this happens all you have to do is press this button, open the lid and see if you can see some ripped mail or whatever is causing it." Ta da! After that, I became expert jam unblocker extraordinaire. All it took was a little explaining.

The place is hopelessly disorganised. On the first day, I had no idea where to report for duty, or who to see. The place is a maze as well, impossible to navigate. It was only luck that brought me eventually to the cafeteria, where I erroneously assumed someone would collect me and the 10 or so other newbies that were supposed to start at the same time. But no. I didn't even see any of the other new staff, nevermind a supervisor, Eventually I started wandering until I found someone in a button down shirt. He then took me and another guy who turned up at the same time, round to Roy, and that was that. No word about when we would get a break, or lunch, or anything. You just kgo with the flow, I learned rather quickly.

The other guy was Ronaldo, this sweet older Peruvian guy who is my new buddy. We were separated at first, then brought together again to do hand sorting, which is the bit I was picturing when I got the job. He hated it, said it was too boring, but it was my cup of tea. It had the added benefit of getting to rest my aching feet too. Unfortunately, it only lasted two hours and I haven't been back since. Instead, I've just been moved from machine to machine, paired up with some truly odd people. As a young white girl, I am definitely in the minority. There are many older men, a few older women, and lots of people I'd cross the street to avoid if I encountered them outdoors.

Last night I had April, a young mother of four who I quite liked. She passed on many of her newly acquired time saving tips, which proved invaluable, especially when they put me on a machine with 100 slots to clear! On two sides! Nightmare. At that machine, I also had my own mail handler to collect the filled trays - a mysterious mute old Chinese man who communicated through gestures and facial expressions alone. He seemed to hear and understand me fine, just couldn't speak. Weird.

God, I just rambled on endlessly about the most boring of topics. I'm so sorry. I know I sound obsessed, but really the job has taken over my life, and will do for the next month. All I seem to do is work and sleep. The rest of my time is spent preparing for either of those activities. And even my sleep is dominated by dreams of mail. I'm afraid I shall be a very dull person. Forgive me.