Well, the constant job searching for many months finally paid off. I had my orientation today — mostly just signing LOTS AND LOTS OF PAPERWORK. Said paperwork also included not one but TWO NDAs, so unfortunately I won’t be able to talk about my work all that much other than generically.

The job is that of game testing for the XBox. The pay is $9.25 an hour, and I am only “on call”, so some weeks will be a lighter work week than others, but the bright side of this is I can choose how proactive I want to be. It also means when things come up (like the time spent away in Chicago this June for a wedding), I’m simply not available for work that week.

They also offer benefits, training (and I don’t mean “job training” — I mean they offer classes in various tech related topics), and other nice things… they’re even willing to help you polish your resume so you can land more permanent work. The drawback is that it means being AT WORK at 7am, at least at first. Work starts at 8am, but until you’ve done it a bit and know the routine, they want you there by 7. I’ve never been much of a morning person, but really this just means getting up… two hours earlier than I do now (and, in fact, earlier than I had to get up for school, which used to start at 7:50am).

Going back to the scheduling thing, talking to the lady giving my orientation, it sounds like generally it’s 2-3 days a week, and that a 5 day work week doesn’t happen all THAT often. While we could certainly use the 40 hour work week (and the potential for overtime that doing a full week allows) in terms of money, I’m actually kind of relieved about this, since it means that I’ll be able to continue to dig into this semester.

All in all, I’m pretty excited about it. I’m aiming to start work on Tuesday (Saturday is Mickey’s birthday, and she has a half day tomorrow at work, plus Sunday is Mother’s Day, and Monday I have an appointment).

In unrelated news, I watched the final episode of Friends with Mickey tonight. It wasn’t bad. Hats off to ya, and what they did to that foosball table is a crying shame. It’s the first episode I’ve actually watched in, uhh, years. Since season two or three, I think. Aaannywho, just thought I’d share.