Welcome to Corporate America.

Well, I did it. I survived my first whole week of life in Corporate America.

It was not entirely without incident, but then, I’m incapable of doing anything in my life entirely without incident. At the very least, none of this week’s events had any lasting damage on my state of employment, so I expect I’ll go back for at least another week.

The week began mercifully free of any doorway-related trauma, and after a short visit with Human Resources, I found my way to my cubicle. After being momentarily frozen by the sight of my name engraved (engraved!) in a nameplate on my cube wall, I suddenly noticed an adorable little bamboo plant on my desk, with a welcome card signed by everyone in my department. It was artfully arranged alongside my brand new business cards and several random objects with the company logo on them. It was a very sweet welcome. I was touched, and instead of mentioning that I am to plants what Jack the Ripper was to London streetwalkers, I simply thanked my coworkers and wrote “WATER ME” on a Post-It note and stuck it to the plant.

My first three days were packed with meetings. The meetings consisted mostly of several very smart people talking about very smart things while I smiled and nodded and tried to pretend I had a degree in something other than art. I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling as if it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day and I had misplaced my mother. And somehow, everyone in the office expected me to do her job.

People in insurance companies have a special way of talking that requires only acronyms, and I am often left wondering which storage closet holds all the vowels. I was fairly certain that the bombardment of foreign terms was going in one ear and out the other, but something must have stuck, because I recognized several words by Thursday, and was even able to offer a somewhat positive-sounding “Mm-hmm” in one of the meetings.

In the few minutes between meetings, I tried to go over the several volumes of administrative information HR had given me. Nowhere in my employee handbook did I find information on how to record a voicemail message without sounding like a complete tool. (It did, however, offer an interesting section about Diversity Training, accompanied by an unintentionally hilarious graphic of several white people sitting at a conference table, all looking at the one black dude in the room. If I thought insurance people had a sense of humor, I would think that cartoon was satirical.)

On my second day, I met with the Vice President of the company. Alone. Now, I have heard people describe me as several things, many of them complimentary, but “executive” is not one of them. So when I went up the Stairs of Labor Class Division and entered the VP’s fancy corner office with his fancy leather sofa and his fancy coffee maker and talked about mergers and bottom lines and the transfer of millions and millions of dollars, I felt a little out of place. Somehow I managed to keep what I imagined was a calm, cool exterior, and I just prayed that the VP couldn’t pick up on my inner monologue, which involved a regular rotation of the words, “terrified,” “intimidating,” “Holy Hell, what am I doing here,” and “Mommy.”

The week wouldn’t be complete, however, without a little profound embarrassment on my part. It was only a matter of time before I made a complete and utter fool of myself, so I’m almost glad I got it out of the way on my SECOND DAY. While attempting to move from a sitting position into a standing position in the lunchroom on Tuesday, I seemed to have skipped several crucial steps in the standing process, and ended up twisting my ankle and falling on my ass. As is required in these situations, my boss and coworkers were right there to witness the episode in its entirety. Their sincere concern for my well-being was probably meant to be kind, but it really just made me feel like a graceless moron. As I picked myself up from the floor and took a mental inventory of all my limbs, I managed to make a joke about being really anxious to take advantage of my Short Term Disability plan.

I felt pretty good about my witty recovery from such an appalling incident (dude, I made an insurance joke!), right up until the next day, when I did it AGAIN. Luckily, this time there was only one witness to my clumsiness, and she had not been present at the previous day’s display. Also luckily, I did not actually fall on my posterior this time, and instead was able to catch myself on said witness’ cubicle wall. I have to wonder at the reaction of the person in the cubicle next door, who probably saw his fabric wall bulge ominously with my weight. I imagine he saw my handprint pressing forth from the wall, Frighteners-style, and decided he had been in the insurance business too damn long as he dug around in his briefcase for his flask.

I never thought I was a particularly clumsy person, but I’m really starting to wonder at my sudden incapability of operating my limbs. I wonder if, at this company, you have to accrue motor skills over time, like PTO. By the end of the year, I should be able to walk a tightrope blindfolded. But seriously? If I don’t stop falling over at work, they’re going to make me take a drug test.

Maybe I’ll pencil that in for next week.