A taste..........

In my new job, I am a gate keeper.

It's a very small part of my job but to the people who are knocking at the gate...it's huge.

I am the corporate liaison...the community relations manager for a very large bookstore.

Writers.....all kinds of writers.....want to have a "signing" in my store.

They want to sit at a small table.....with piles of their books.......with long lines of adoring fans waiting for their pen to scratch out an autograph.....perhaps they will smile for a cell phone camera....or a newspaper photographer.

The reality is..... it takes a lot of effort and overhead to manage a signing....I have to order signs, contact newspapers and other appropriate venues, update online sites, order books, set up, remain in the store and ...of course....the goal is to actually sell books.....which is a benefit for the store that hosted the event and the author who wants to move his career forward.

Novice writers.....often believe a signing is magical. It seems to be a rite....a passage from amature to professional....a type of bar mitzvah....where a author says......today I have a signing in a bookstore...today ....I am a writer.

Unfortunately many want to sit at that table.....when their product or perhaps even their writing is not at a professional level. They want to bring books they published via Kinkos.....books they paid vanity presses lots of money to print.....and books they've printed by becoming their own small press publishers. Occasionally there are some wonderful surprises .....often the books simply don't meet publishing standards...typos...bad editing.....lack of a title on the spine.

So the first person who is their first contact on the way to the table...will be me.

Last week, I was paged to handle the first of my callers.

A pleasant woman in business casual handed me her wild colored and decorative business card. She had an unpublished children's book.....one she had printed herself.

We chatted for a few minutes and I realized she was hanging on my every word. Most of it was business.....does your book have an ISBN.....does your book have a bar code? She dutifully noted my words in her little note book.....when she stopped scribbling ....she looked up at me...and I was almost pierced with her desire...her hope to get her book out into the world.

I wish I could tell you I was so compassionate or angelic that I devoted lots of time to her...but I had calls coming in and I gave her good basic information then had to return to my office.

As I walked back.....I realized I had tasted something interesting.....

I think it was power.....

granted a small dose ...but still a droplet...... and sometimes that's all you need to understand something...... I thought of "casting couches" and bribes.....kick backs...and a thousand movies where some character is a gate keeper.....where people plead for bigger and more important things...like their life.

I sat in my black worn leather chair in the office and felt this decision point pressing on me ....a small decision point....in the scheme of life...but one of those junctures where you consciously make a decision on who you are or want to be.....

and then they paged me for another call....I choose....smiled...and said..."Hello this is Gina," and I meant it.

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48 hours into my new job.......

Around 3pm this afternoon, I searched my office for a garbage can or some type of bucket.

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I could feel my brain melting....and being the tidy sort....thought the least I could do was find something to collect my cortical matter.

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If you asked me my name....I'm sure I would have paused.

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Monday.....my first day at my new job....I left the building buzzed....confident I could handle everything.......today....I slinked out....leaking gray matter. It's like the learning curve suddenly turned into the learning mountain.

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When the low gas icon blinked at me in the car.... I actually sat there staring at the orange light..... as if some alien creature was waving at me from the dashboard. Gas....Gina....Go Get Gas.

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I read an article a while back that postulated..... when you learn lots of new things quickly.....your brain cells fling new connections at adjoining cells........like hands reaching out to shake other hands.....so ...I may not be suffering from melted brain syndrome but fuzzy brain syndrome......with too many little hands trying to shake too many other little hands.

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I'm going to head down to the kitchen and pour myself a tall glass of wine.....maybe I can make all these excited little hands go limp for the evening.

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They can all regroup and get friendly in the morning.

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Back to the Business World.......

At 7:30 am Monday....I'm going to walk into a conference room....set my girlie briefcase down.....smile at the management team....and rejoin the business world...full time.

Talk about life changes.....lol.

I decided in May to return to work in the real world.

My daughter is getting serious about grad school....and the youngest of the family plans to be an engineer which takes an additional year of college.....in other words.....cah ching cah ching......more of these babies>>>>>$$$$$........ have to find their way into our checking account.

In true Gina-style.....I planned to vacation in New York....plus take a few extra jaunts.....before my wings got clipped...... but a job I had always been interested in....suddenly became available.....and the corporate folks interviewed me by phone during my Long Island vacation.

I wish I could have taped my interviews....you could actually hear my brain groan......as it tried to leave lah-lah-beach mode and turn on to business mode. During the first interview...sand fell from my hair onto the phone ( I wondered if my voice quality sounded "scratchy").....and the maids fired up a dozen vacuum cleaners in the hotel hallway outside my room during the second interview.

I'm not sure I believe in "signs" or "omens"....but I found out the job was mine....right after I saw a rainbow.....on the last day of my vacation on Long Island....and since rainbows are arched...and resemble doorways....I felt very positive and confident about the change....even though it will be a ton of work.

Tonight....I've done girlie physical maintenance.... set my clothes out.....and packed my business bag.

Although I am ready in one sense.....I feel ......naked.....I am painfully aware my skills....my life experiences....my judgement.....my flaws.... me.....will sit down at the table tomorrow, receive a set a goals......and then all of me.....all these parts...congruent and incongruent....good and bad.....will swirl and dance and strive.....to accomplish them.....and not just accomplish them....but succeed in a way which credits what I know, who I am.......and what I believe has to be done.

Geez......better put an extra can of Starbucks espresso in the bag....this could be quite an adventure.
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