No, I'm not talking about the stock market.

I've mentioned before about having to scramble at the end of last year to find a new job assignment after my prior 17.5-year-long gig wound down. I think I also mentioned somewhere that so far I haven't found this new opportunity particularly amusing. Nice people and all, it just a mismatch between skill set required and what I'm good at. Learning new things in principle is good, but this isn't stuff I'd invest energy learning if someone wasn't dangling a paycheck in front of me.
The biggest part of the job now is turning a recently emptied room into what you might call a "lab facility" (that term makes it sound sexier than it actually is). As often happens, the effort has not been smooth and the workload for me ebbs at times. This week is one of those times. Yesterday the only thing for me to do was to sweep the ~5,000 sq ft floor with an undersized broom in preparation for some VP that's supposed to walk through the area next week. I discovered there are many spiders lurking in the shadowy places, and a few looked like the variety of spiders one does not want to get bitten by. I did not hesitate to employ the broom a little more vigorously around those guys.
Part of me wanted to be indignant. When I joked about this to the manager of the group I was loaned from, she felt sorry for me. I have my annual performance review later this week, and I can just imagine telling my official boss that the highlights of my accomplishments in my new capacity have been tearing apart wooden shipping crates (only one small splinter!), carrying/pushing heavy things around the room, hauling a small mountain of trash and discarded packing materials from inside to outside for pick up, and sweeping the floor. Maybe I can lobby to get the company to train me on advanced modern vacuum cleaner operation (they have a Dyson in the custodial supply room) and so expand my opportunities in this new-found career.
That last paragraph was meant to be humorous. The sweeping was actually a reasonably pleasant experience. The first official job I ever had was as a janitor after school at the high school I attended during my freshman year. Being an introvert, that first year in so large a school (~1,500 students) was stressful, but being around the school after the cacophony died in a sense allowed me to make peace with the whole situation. If you let yourself, you can fall into a rhythm with any simple repetitive activity ("Wax on. Wax Off"). I learned that first shoveling snow as a kid, but I think sweeping classrooms and hallways, washing blackboards, and emptying trash after school is what really imprinted it on me.
There's a Zen saying: when you sweep, sweep. I suppose it's an exhortation to being completely mindful and present with what you are doing. When I got bored sweeping, which took about ten minutes, I began repeating that silently to myself. Sounds corny, but it did make the time pass with less internal resistance on my part. It also brought me back in time to a more carefree version of myself.
Reflecting on the day made me think I'll do pretty good as an early retiree. In the meantime I'll keep my fingers crossed that my spider body count will get me a bit sweeter of a raise, if not this time round, then next.