NYC- Week One.

I had been in New York City for four days.

And on that magical fourth day, I finally managed to walk the right way exiting the subway station to get to work. Since the nearest subway station is approximately one block away, you’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult.

But mind you, for the directionally challenged, a category I include myself in, that’s a big accomplishment.

I grew up mostly in the suburbs, which I hated, with a three-year stint in Tokyo, which I loved. Given my time in Tokyo, you would think I could use the subway without screwing it up.

I always said that when I grew up, I wanted to live in Manhattan. Though I don’t exactly feel grown up, as my apartment is mostly unfurnished my kitchen only contains yogurt, avocados and Annie’s macaroni and cheese, I did make it here.
After a request for my writing style, I moved to New York City to do public relations for a real estate development company.

Yes, I know.

As a journalist I shouldn’t have been seduced by the nice apartment, beautiful office, decent salary and Manolo Blahnik store less than a block away. But it’s too late for that now. Especially since I saw the Manolo store before I accepted this trial position.

Do I know anything about PR? No, not really.

Do I know anything about real estate or development? Nope.

But last Monday, after being assured that I would be taught about PR and about real estate, I arrived here anyways.

I parked my minivan illegally and hopped out of the car with Liz, my best friend from home, to wander up and down West Street, looking for my boss so he would let me into my first big-girl apartment building.

To-the-point and brief, he showed me the apartment (a studio with high ceilings, two windows and two closets), the gym, the “business center,” which appeared to be a room with a fax machine, and the real entrance, which confusingly enough, is on Washington Street, not West Street.

The U-Haul arrived and O (my new boss) invited several building employees to help unload it. And by help, I mean unload everything for me.

Thank goodness, because it was about 95 degrees out and unbearably humid. I sweat through my unfashionable tourist clothes just watching them move all of my crap.
Good first impression on building employees: Check.

The rest of the day was spent returning the U-Haul to the West 23rd Street location, a process so horrific I’m working to scratch it from my memory as I type, putting together my bed and unpacking my shoes with my mom’s boyfriend, my aunt and Liz.
We decided to try to get to Whole Foods and Bed, Bath & Beyond to try to get some toilet paper and other things.

I had seen the stores on the way back from returning the U-Haul, and they looked pretty close, like they were about three or so blocks away if we just walked down West Street.

Only you can’t just walk down West Street because of all the construction. So we had to walk down part of West Street, walk through an overpass onto the wrong side of the road and through the World Financial Center, walk out of the World Financial Center and through another overpass, walk around one block and then down another to Whole Foods.

My aunt, who is 57 and not in the best shape, was not happy.

I got toilet paper, but we never made it to Bed, Bath & Beyond because my aunt was tired and we couldn’t find the entrance.

We made it back to the apartment without using the overpasses.

They left, I cried. Because really, I don’t know anyone in this city.

But since crying is largely unproductive, and my apartment doesn’t have the Internet unless I steal it from a neighbor, I decided to try to venture to Bed, Bath & Beyond again to see if they had the cable to connect my television to the wall so it would work.

Because there was no way I could just sit there and not have working television or Internet. I don’t even remember the days before the Internet.

I got lost, but I made it there and back, and connected my TV. I only get about ten channels, which is fine because one of them plays a lot of Seinfeld reruns.

Day One:
I had a plan. But whenever I have a plan, something always goes wrong. Getting to my first day of work was no exception.

You see, I planned to arrive at the wrong address. Because somehow in my stressed-out, lonely, new to New York City mind, I decided that I worked at 13 West 34th Street.

So after walking around the same six blocks for an hour and not finding the building I had been to only one time before, for my interview, I came up with a new plan.

I was going to put the address into Bing on my BlackBerry and it would use the GPS component in my phone to give me step-by-step walking directions.

Only that doesn’t work when you’re walking to the wrong place because you put in the wrong address.

Convinced that something had gone wrong with Bing, I Googled the company to get the number to call them and tell them I was going to be late, as I was lost.

Low and behold, on the company website, there was an address. I was no where near it.

Awesome. I had just been hanging out, walking in circles 20 blocks away, and now I was officially late for my first day.

But hey, at least I knew where to go from there.

It never occurred to me to just take a cab.

So in the 90-degree heat, I walked 20 blocks to arrive at work, sweaty, embarrassed and amazed by my own stupidity.

Good first impression on coworkers: Check.

Jamee, who works here too, was nice enough to give me an office tour. First stop, my office. I put my bag down in there and quickly noticed a few things.

The first of which was a flat screen television hooked up to DirecTV. I still haven’t figured out why it’s in here.

Then, I see my computer. A Dell. My thought? “Oh, [expletive].”

Because I don’t know how to use a PC. I haven’t needed to in years.

In college, I used Macs for writing articles (which I recognize I can do on a PC), editing video, altering sound, digitizing and editing images, and doing things that PC’s are generally no good for.

Other weird things I found in my office: Degree men’s deodorant, pants that look like the men’s version of mom jeans and a suitcase.

Jamee continues to give me the office tour. I meet some people (David, Joy and Mark), hear the names of people who work in between here and the New Jersey office, see that the toilet seat is up in the bathroom and get a tour of the kitchen.

Which, I may add, is very well stocked with necessities like coffee and tea. But also unfortunately houses cases of environmentally unfriendly bottled water, which after a few days I’m now in the habit of drinking.

In my last office, all we had was a coffee pot and a vending machine.

I’m pretty sure all I did after my tour was read. I read all day. About every property Skyline owns. And then I read some more.

And then I wrote a little bit. Two whole press releases.

Now that I had finally gotten to the “work” part of my day, I had no clue what I was doing, something that seems to be a common theme throughout my time in the city.

I wrote a few sentences about each lease, but despite a bit of direction from Orin, still had no idea what I was doing.

The day ended.

After my disastrous attempt to get to work that morning, Jamee took pity on me and helped me get home.

Which I did, successfully.

I did my yoga, made organic macaroni and cheese, complained to my long distance boyfriend about how lonely I am, and went to bed very early because I was paranoid about oversleeping and being late again.

Day Two:
I got off the subway a stop too early on my way to work so I had to walk a little bit extra. Given the forty or so blocks I had walked the day before, day two’s walk was nothing.

I got to the office and I read all day.

To give my eyes a break from re-reading Curbed and The Real Deal, I re-read the press releases that were already finished.

Then, I read Real Estate Weekly.

Also, the computers weren’t really working. No one’s e-mail was set up correctly. This caused mass amounts of stress in the office, which I opted to stay out of as I didn’t have a work e-mail address for things to be deleted from and couldn’t gauge how angry people were.

I took the right subway home and didn’t get lost.

Day Three:
I woke up to an e-mail from O saying that there was a meeting at 9:30 I needed to attend. Most people probably don’t get excited about meetings. But I did.
At meetings, there is no reading. Not that I don’t like reading, but websites only update every so often.

This meeting meant that for at least one hour, I wouldn’t have to look at Curbed, The Real Deal or Real Estate Weekly.

The day had already improved, and I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.

Another plus: My attempt to steal the Internet from someone had worked. After days of withdrawal, I could check Facebook on a computer again.

And when I checked Facebook, I noticed that my best friend from Tokyo changed her current city to New York, New York. So I texted her.

Turns out, she works at West 54th and 6th Ave, a half block away from me.
I still haven’t seen her yet, but knowing that there is someone in this city who I know was a huge relief.

I got to work and was referred to as “Carmen Sandiego” by a man I hadn’t seen before. I just assumed that he was the other Mark, who I hadn’t yet met in my two days of employment.

I hadn’t finished my coffee and had no clue what this guy was talking about. Was he being funny? Are you really funny if someone has to wonder if you’re trying to be?
Did he think my name was Carmen? Does he normally make snide comments to people before introducing himself? Had I met him before and just forgotten?

I finished my coffee and went upstairs to try to go to the meeting. O said no one was there yet and I didn’t have to come upstairs until he called me.

Oops.

I’m just saying, that wasn’t included in the e-mail or morning greeting, and after the 34th street fiasco on day one, I was a little paranoid about being late.

At the beginning of the meeting I discovered that the Carmen Sandiego remark man was indeed the other Mark, who happens to be the attorney.

Then there was a lot of lease agreement talk, which included paint, light bulbs and storage. It seemed pretty straightforward.

After the meeting O told me to research the company who is signing the lease, their current location and NYIT.

I was thrilled. The most journalistic task yet! Research. Something I know how to do.

Then I discovered something else about this computer.
It’s slow.
To cope, I’ve come to think of it as having it’s own personality.

This computer is extremely laid back. It’s just taking its sweet time to open programs and web pages, at a pace that it thinks is appropriate.

It’s nice enough, you know-- personality wise, no virus messages have popped up (not that I would know what to do if they had), and it eventually does whatever I ask it to do, but it does take an awfully long time to do it.

I read for the rest of the day, that is, until the other Mark came in and announced that it was Thursday, so at 3:30 we were having cupcakes.

I thought he was kidding. But sure enough, at 3:30, we all gathered and ate cupcakes.

The other Mark made fun of Joy’s boyfriend’s shoes, which he referred to as “ass-tighteners” and worried about there not being a man in the office the next day, because one of the messengers could be crazy and attack Jamee.

After all, this is a man’s office. We make coffee with bottled water to make David happy, the toilet seat is always up, even when there are no men here, and they swear like they think they’re sailors when something isn’t working right.

Then the Carmen Sandiego thing came up again.
Turns out, it was a joke. Because where in the world was I on my first day?

Oh. I get it now. Funny if you’re old enough to remember the show.

I left work on Friday and headed to Grand Central Station. Or at least that’s where I thought I was going.

I’m not sure where exactly I walked, but I must have been pretty close because when I finally gave up and took a cab, the total came to $2.90. So much for finding my way around this city…

I spent the holiday weekend between Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island since I was told no one stays in the city for the 4th of July.
I saw my friends and family from home, which was nice given that I still don’t have any here.

Monday marked my one-week anniversary with the city of New York.
My long distance boyfriend broke up with me while I was on a train back from Connecticut. And I couldn’t figure out how to put up the curtains in my apartment.
I still haven’t eaten any famous, delicious New York City food, I still haven’t figured out where I’m going, I still haven’t made any friends and I’m still trying to figure out what my job is at work.

But if I think about the little accomplishments, like walking the right way off the of the subway to work, successfully hailing a cab, sort of understanding how Microsoft Outlook works, or finally unpacking all of my clothes, I guess that I’m slowly adjusting to this whole New-York-City thing.

Keyword: Slowly. After all, I’m still always lost.