i'm so glad you asked!

if i had a dollar for everytime i had to go into detail about what it is i do, i'd have roughly a fat five dollar bill in my leetle back pocket.

while i'm not scouring the internet or taking on more side projects than i know what to do with, my official title is project coordinator.

i know what you're thinking: that sounds like a job some kind of communications major would get - totally ambiguous.

i'm tapping my nose at you then, genius.

try to stay with me here.

we're a small company (just about twenty five or thirty full time personnel) that can, at times, do some pretty hefty business. since we're in the chemical engineering industry, one that's been struggling for the last fifteen years (i recall summers where we couldn't buy groceries and my little brother and i would snack on frosting out of the can. mmmm.), you can bet your bottom dollar that no day is the same.

for instance, for the better portion of my day yesterday, i was holed up in a conference with some company that wants us to dig a hole in canada and make cobalt and copper out of it. they want to pay us many dollars for it, so i don't argue.

it's like our motto says, "earth first! we'll mine other planets later."

i'm a primary project contact, meaning that in the chain of command around here, i fall somewhere directly to the right of the middle, given that executives are to the left. i'm a liaison between the vendors, ourselves, and our clients.

i'm a go-to girl.

i have to know where everyone and everything is at any given time. and, since i'm not only a downtown resident, but the boss's daughter, i get to be on-call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

but that doesn't mean i don't have any pull around here; i'm always the first person people come to with computer problems, if something is missing, or if our receptionist is drunk again (i'm not kidding. she's since been replaced).

we also send our engineers all over the world to survey sites and oversee the assembly of the extraction and refinery plants we (they) design here at home. exotic places, like the antarctic. the dominican republic. mexico. argentina. extremely far north-east russia. kazakhstan (that's right! the same place where american contractors are being beheaded, which answers the question, "why would you go there if you're an american contractor?"). even idaho.

yes, idaho.

the world is littered with underground chemicals that people pay good money for.

that's where we come in.

it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta pay me to do it. my vocab has expanded trifold since i've been here; i can correctly identify and define a flange, motor control center, mixer/settler, thickener, conduit, skids, connexes, jaw crusher, sump pump, float switch, aggragate, assay furnace, culvert, and electric winch.

we also use words that require a grown-up attitude on a daily basis, like erection, lubrication, inlet skirt, bend-over, and discharger.

still with me?

i get paid well; more than most people my age - but i have to admit, most people my age with my experience couldn't tolerate this environment if they hadn't been born into it. this place is abundant with real live pocket protector-clad nerds who have zero communication skills whatsoever.

good-willed folk, but mean tempered and math-minded, to boot. and they're all old. the mean age around here is probably 55.

my job is as much challenging as it is a test of will, but without tooting my own horn, we've been awarded almost every project on which we've bid since i've been here, and in turn have been able to give people jobs (take that, environmentalist bastards! you still value the earth over human beings?!)

if you've lasted this long, you either have a better understanding of my professional life, or you know to never, ever ask me what i do for a living.

now if you'll excuse me, i have to work on weekly correspondence, call a plumber, edit many documents, type even more, and somehow find the time to read all of your blogs and come up with witty comments on a whim.

sigh.