more work info, because it's my life

i've been having these killer headaches all week and what better to add to my troubles than being hit by a car?? yep, that would have sucked. i bring it up because it was close: i was almost creamed by an old-man car - you know, a big buick - in a parking lot we cruise through between home and work. that's the second time i can remember since i started biking to work that i've almost been hit. i guess that's not a terrible record.

i've had some questions about my new job so i thought i would describe some of the things i'm doing so you get a better idea of how i spend 8 hours a day. every day. all week long. does it ever bother you that you spend more time working every day than doing everything else. the only thing that comes close is sleeping, on a good night that is.

okay work. so my group is called the pesticide management regulatory agency, or pmra for short, and is part of health canada. it's one of the very few government departments that actually hire biologists and i got this job through the whole competition process. on my own. the only other jobs i've gotten on my own are pizza pizza and subway, and well, you can tell why. hello fast food.

my actual title is assistant screening officer. i work for the screening group and we screen applications for pesticides. when i say pesticides that can be anything from a brand new active ingredient (poison) and new end-use product (what you buy in the store), an amendment to an existing product, a change to the label on a product, and tons of other stuff. my group takes all these submissions and checks that they will be able to move on through the process. that means they have to have all the correct forms filled out properly, the correct fees, and the relevant data.

one of the great things is that every submission is different and almost all submissions have some sort of issue (wrong fee, wrong data, whatever) so i foresee myself not getting bored with the job for a while. don't get me wrong though, a lot of the work is the same for every submission: the same things have to be checked and the same forms have to be created and filled.

on the personal side of work, the screening group has about a dozen people and everyone seems really nice. no one is super old - i would be surprised if my boss was already in her 30s. the building is an older building, not a tower like i'm used to, but close to home, close to j and has lots of green space around it with tons of picnic tables and trees. there is a huge parking lot across the street with cheapcheapcheap parking that i will be taking advantage of during the winter months (starting in october or november) that will be especially nice once we move. for right now, there are bike racks right outside the front door and one shower room, surprisingly underused, with lockers and everything. i use the hand dryer to dry my hair.

i'm here until next july on this term but am hoping that either i get extended or they make me indeterminant. i can see myself working here for the long term. so far everything is good and if i hadn't spent two years looking for a job like this it would be perfect, but two years really isn't all that long when i was employed for all but 4 months of that time, and that was by choice. it's nice to have the security (and sick/vacation pay) that a term position allows for the next year. i would still call this job ideal. i don't know what would make it better.