New Job

It's hard being the new girl at a new job. Everyone is judging you, wondering if you're good enough, wondering if you've got what it takes. So, what do you do? You try to fit in, blend in, do any old thing you can to stay under the radar. Unfortunately, on week one, I failed miserably at this.

Every Thursday we have potluck lunches. The first week I was there everyone decided to have pizza. I didn't really want pizza because I was trying to eat healthy. I thought it would be okay if I brought something of my own as long as I sat with everyone at the table and socialized. WRONG!

There I was, heating up my Lean Cuisine meal when one of the counselors came up to me.

Sally asked, "You aren't eating pizza?"

"No, I brought this instead."

"It's sort of required that you eat whatever we're eating."

I looked at her like she was nuts. What kind of rule was that? "Are you serious?" I could have sworn she was joking.

"No, I'm serious. Bob requires it."

"Really?" I said.

"Really. But you already started heating that up so it's okay." She patted my shoulder. "Just so you know for next time."

I took my meal out of the microwave. "No, it's okay. I'll eat pizza." After all, I didn't want to piss my boss off the first week on the job.

I walked into the conference room and went up to the secretary. "How much was the pizza?"

"You're going to eat pizza now?"

"Yeah. Sally said it was required."

She scoffed at me. "It's not required."

"She said Bob required it," I explained.

And then Bob walked into the conference room and Sara turned to him and asked, "It's not required for her to eat pizza is it?"

My cheeks heated up. This was so not good. "Of course not!" Bob said. "She can eat whatever she wants. She doesn't even have to eat with us if she doesn't want to. She can go home. It's not required for her to be here."

Mortification blanketed me. Oh God. This was horrible. I didn't want to make a big deal about this. I just wanted to eat what I wanted to eat. Was that too much to ask?

Since the boss said it was okay for me to eat whatever I wanted and he sounded sincere about it, I finished heating up my Lean Cuisine and sat down at the table. Everyone was eating pizza. And I mean everyone.

"So, you aren't going to eat with us Kim?" Bob chuckled.

A nervous laugh escaped my throat. Was he serious? Was he joking? It was hard to tell with these people. I sat there, picking at my food, feeling completely self-conscious. I couldn't tell you what they talked about for that whole hour because I was too busy worrying whether people were judging me or not and I was pretty sure they were.

I felt like I was a teenager all over again. You know how it was when you thought everyone was always watching you, staring at you, finding fault with you? That's what it was like.

Needless to say, I didn't enjoy my lunch very much that day.