I started a new job today with a company that provides retirement plans to companies. I'll be working in their call center, answering questions their employees have about their investments and doing trades.

I don't know the first thing about investments.

I was given directions to a clean building with a shiny blackish-brown marble exterior and instructed to park in one of the visitor spots. I was told to go to dial a phone near the elevator and ask for Paige, who would come to get me.

I went into the building (which is equally shiny on the inside) and dialed the phone as told. I got Paige's voice mail and let her know I was downstairs by the elevator.

I was there a minute or so when this heavy set woman walked, looked around a bit, and then started walking towards the phone. I asked her if she was here for Paige, and she said yes. I told her Paige wasn't at her desk.

She kind of looked mad, then stood against the wall opposite me. I think she thought Paige wasn't there on account of something I did.

We waited a couple of more minutes and Paige came down. She apologized for making us wait and brought us up to the third floor, where we were brought into this mini break room/cafeteria with several other people. I guess I'll be working with the woman who got mad at me, and her name is Angela.

Everyone was kind of quiet. One guy played with his cellphone and didn't look up once.

After a few minutes, Paige came back in and thanked us for waiting. She said we'd be moving down to a classroom on the first floor to meet the Director of Customer Service, or something to that effect, but first we had to fill out some forms and get fingerprinted.

I guess anyone who works around investments has to get fingerprinted. I'm unsure as to why. There's nothing at all to steal, aside from office supplies.

You also have to fill out a form that lists every place you've worked at or lived for the past 10 years. I couldn't remember that far back and had to start making up zip codes and such.

After about 30 minutes of forms, Paige came in with the fingerprint guy and said we could make our way down to the first floor when we were done. We all got fingerprinted and got this white cream to wash off the ink that smells like bananas.

I was the last one printed, so when I got downstairs the director was already with everyone else. Her name was Sue. The room reeked of bananas.

Sue came up and shook my hand. I must have still had that fingerprint cleaner on it, because she wiped her hand on her skirt afterwards.

She welcomed us all to our first day, and told us we wouldn't be able to park in the main lot after today. Apparently, their office only gets so many spots in the lot and they were maxed out, so we'd get permits to park in a remote lot not too far away from the office.

She handed out tags to hang on our rear view mirrors so we wouldn't get towed, said goodbye to us, and left.

Paige got us started by getting us to introduce ourselves to the group and tell us a little about our background. I had to start.

This is my first job out of college, so I told everyone I graduated recently and was looking forward to working here. I felt like an idiot after, but it sounded much better than "this is all a history degree could get me."

They went on to the next guy, who was also named Gerald. Paige thought that was funny and made a joke that nobody laughed at.

Gerald had graduated a year ago and spent the past year working at a bicycle shop. He said he needed a change, and heard this industry was interesting. Then he said he was looking forward to working here.

Then there was this guy who worked in a pizza shop and another guy who worked on a ski lift in Oregon. It didn't seem as if anyone had any work experience that might have prepared them for this job.

I pictured some brochure being sent to our customers:

"Should you have any questions regarding your account, our call center is staffed with disinterested, barely qualified 20-somethings whose lack of direction has landed them here."

The rest of the stories sort of blended together, except for two.

Angela, as it turns out, had pursued a career in the medical field until a latex allergy made it impossible for her to work in a clinical setting.

The other was from a guy named Reynaldo, who said he was training for the Olympic Ju-Jitsu Team, but had to give up his dream to make money for his family. Later in the day, Reynaldo confided in me that he kept a pair of nunchucks in his car for self-defense.

The rest of the day we had classes on the financial services industry, investments, retirement plans, and such. We got a binder for every class we took, so at the end of the day we had about 40 pounds of reading material.

At the end of the day, Paige told us our desks wouldn't be ready until tomorrow, and asked if it would be a problem for us to bring our training materials home. It was, but no one seemed like giving Paige a problem on their first day.

I went home and watched a story on the news about these people who stole a mummy from an art gallery. Who the hell steals a mummy?