Sorry I haven't been posting; life is too busy lately. Here's an update:

My new job started Monday and I am in the midst of a huge brain cram. Going well so far.

My previous job and this one are like night and day though they are in the same company. At my last job, I sat in several hours' worth of meetings that weren't relevant to my job responsibilities. Then they expected me to do X and Y, but I did not have much time available after being in meetings all the time.

Here's an analogy: Someone asks you to bake a tiered wedding cake for tomorrow, but then tells you that you have to drive 200 miles to pick up a car and drive it back this afternoon. And also, there are no cake pans or bowls for your cake project because they aren't in the budget. Here's a spoon, though. But before you use that spoon, please get this document giving you permission to use the spoon signed off by three managers. Oh! And at three today, an auditor is going to come in and check that you had the Spoon Permission Form signed off correctly, and then recommend that the form be signed off by an additional two managers. By the way, you are doing a great job. We really appreciate the hard work you have put in to accomplish absolutely nothing.