A Geek in Beantown

My desk area at work

My desk area at work,
originally uploaded by jasra.

My corner of the office.

First week done! Many, many more to go!

I finished my first week of work by driving home in really heavy traffic. That was the only bad part of my week.

The commute: Yes, the drive is on the long side, but I get to listen to lots of my music and have time to think and look at the trees. And my car is happy to get highway driving time again. All that city driving was causing me to get not-great gas mileage.

The people: I work with a really friendly bunch of people. The team I'm on is small (3 people), but I work closely with about 2 dozen people. And everyone else in the company who I've met in my travels around the office has been wonderful  and asked how things are going for me. My manager is so happy I'm there, as am I.

The work: I was given a project to oversee on my first day (code being written in Bangalore). It looked like it was going to not be completed until the end of next week, but I found most of the information that the developers needed, reviewed their Java code, made suggestions, and helped them out. Now they think they'll be done by Tuesday. I have 2 other projects that I'm learning about. I'm busy and happy.

The location: I work a couple of miles away from my previous roommate so once I get settled in, we're going to meet up for lunch. I also drive past my brother and sis-in-law's house so could meet them for dinner sometimes. And I also drive past the exit for my friend Janet and we're going to make dinner plans too. All good things.

The odd observations I have: Wearing shoes for 10 hours a day is strange to my feet, but they're adjusting. Getting up at 6:30 wasn't difficult to adjust to (I was getting up at 8 most days when I was out of work). I'm going to try getting up at 6 this coming week and see if that helps me avoid more traffic.

The summary: I can't stop smiling!

First day of my new job

First, I got there at 8:30 and I was due at 9, so I read in my car for 25 minutes so I wouldn't be absurdly early. Once I got in, the HR woman was summoned and I signed all of my paperwork in front of her. We went through her presentation and then we were done. Much earlier than she expected. ;)

My new manager was running late, but once she got in we had a meeting and went over a bunch of things and then I got to meet a bunch of friendly people who I'll be working with. My desk is in the bullpen. On my side, there's a guy who is on my team and on the other side are 4 people who are part of another team (who we work with, but less immediately). The IT group is not that far away -- just outside of where the bullpen is. The cubes are HUGE. I got my laptop (Dell Latitude D630) and asked for a natural keyboard (which they had one of). I'm going to get a monitor and maybe a docking station later, but for now, things are good.

My mgr and I had a meeting with a non-local team. I took notes and asked a bunch of questions. She said she was really glad that I was here! Later, she asked me to summarize the call since the other team really needs detailed instructions to follow.

I hadn't brought lunch, so I went downstairs to the cafeteria in the building. The chicken was tasty, but the pizza looked well done. Not a big deal though -- I'll mostly be bringing lunch with me, but it's nice to have an option so close by.

Speaking of, there's a fitness room in the building. I didn't get a chance to look at it, but I'm going to.

A friendly person made a copy of the floor plan for me and highlighted my desk, her desk, my manager and my grand-manager's desks. Helpful! I was pleased when I managed to find the front door so I could go downstairs for lunch. ;)

I've finished summarizing the meeting and doing the research that was fallout of that meeting. I've read some docs, but need to get a little more direction on which servers have the scripts that I should be poking at to answer the last of those questions.

My new phone number has my favorite number in it. That's nifty.

Oh right. That's a lot of sitting plus 45-50 mins of driving each way.