Ghetto Pay Betta Than No Pay

For $12.00 per hour I was able to work to cover my 3 weeks of absence from MEC Dynamics. Quite an adventure.

I got a call late Tuesday night that Stanford University's division that handles Medical student related things needed someone to come in for day or two to help prepare for their 10th annual HCOP program (Health Careers Opportunity Program) which begins on Sunday June 25th.

With very little to go on other than the room # and building, I was to report at work by 8:00am in the morning, an hour earlier than my regular job. Since the job was all the way up in Palo Alto what crossed my mind was:

1. Traffic,
2. Parking,
3. Motorcycle,
4. Hot.

Indeed, Wednesday was going to be one of the hottest days this week, hitting the lower 90s in San Jose. I used to work at Stanford so i knew that there's no place for you to park without having to pay the campus' "transportation & parking" laws. So taking the motorcycle was going to be the best mode of transportation to avoid traffic and parking fees.

I used to go to Stanford with my motorycle and parked next to the main hospital building behind some bushes near a bike rack, a regular place for motorcycles to park yet inappropriate to park on the sidewalk.

$12.00 is ghetto pay so I didn't want to spend any money for this job if I didn't have to (food, gas, etc.). I had to fill up the gas tank enough as it is so I decided to make two quick cheese & scrambled egg muffins for my lunch.

I woke up at 6:00 to get my stuff together to head to my parent's to get my motorcycle, geared up in my lightest suit, and made my way effortlessy to campus. I got to the parking lot to the building I was to work at at 7:40.

Things have changed since I was last here, as all the free motorcycle-designated parking spaces had a sign that says "Permit Required."

Well shoop, so I drove across to the other side to find perhaps another motorcycle parking space that has no permit required. No such luck.

So I was stumped. "Okay, I'll just go back to my usual parking space...even though it's across on the other side...so I'll just have to hump it to this building for work."

Upon reaching my old haven of parking, I was greeted with a sign (that I have never seen before) that basically said "No Parking on Sidewalk" "no motorcycles" "will be towed" and "enforced"

"Was this sign *always* here?" I wondered to myself. So Stanford finally made decided to make money for every vehicle that parks on their land. I'm surprised they haven't charged bicyclists for locking up their bikes on their land. Geez.

In any case I parked anyway, I figured that I can take my chances or at least perhaps when I get to the office they'd have a parking permit for me. I was correct. However, it's for a car.

Rather than let me make a parking space in one of the dirt bicycle parking lots, my supervisor insisted that I go get a motorcycle parking permit from the "parking and Transportation" department. So I had to drive across campus, stopping at a stop sign every quarter mile, until I reached the building. Luckily there was no line, however it costs me $1.50 just to get a daily parking permit.

After getting back and putting myself to work, I wanted to go online to waste time on MySpace and what not. Thing is, you need a log-in to even go online while you're on the Stanford campus. What, I can't just go online and haplessly download porn without someone from Stanford watching? I'm appalled.

I brought my laptop so that I could watch a movie during my one hour lunch. Thing is, they didn't have a log-in for me, so I ended up volunteering my laptop for 2.5 hours of work...the length of time that my laptop lasted before my battery ran out. I stood around and did nothing for an hour during my lunch.

Although I understand I am a temp, my office space assigned was literally a closet. No joke, I was sharing the cubicle with a bunch of boxes stacked high around my computer monitor. There was a printer there, so I was visited by many people throughout the day getting ahold of their printed jobs. You know, it wasn't even the size of a cubicle but rather a retangle. One might call it a "reticle" if you think about that.

I guess it wasn't so bad that my laptop didn't work and I had a closet for a work space. I spent the hour talking to my girlfriend on the phone, standing. It was too hot to sit outside and my reticle was too small for me to lean my chair back. Yes, THAT SMALL. I couldn't even open my door all the way because I had a skinny tall box behind the door.

At least I learned something today, that I don't want to go back. However duty calls and they need me to do their grunt work, so I'm recruited to work for the rest of the week in my closet.

Most interesting though was the program I'm working on, HCOP. It's a program that sophomores and juniors in college can apply for and get a 6-week intern/introduction to the medical field. As long as you meet their requirements you get an all expense-paid trip to learn. Some key things I learned:

1. They'll reimburse you for flight for you to come out to Stanford,
2. They'll reimburse you the gase money for driving out to Stanford,
3. Room and food are provided for you during the 6 weeks,
4. Only 44 are accepted out of the 200 that may apply,
5. Not many people know about it,
6. but you're with them 24 hours a day for 6 weeks.

Not too bad considering you can put down that you did a summer program with a name like "Stanford" where you learned about stuff. Applications accepted starting every November. http://hcop.stanford.edu.