The Lion's Den
First day of work. I can't believe it went by so quickly or even that it's here. I mean when you think about it, it was just yesterday when I was in kindergarten fingerpainting (were my feet and hands really that small?), and now I am going through the orientation for a new job, in a new career.
It didn't start auspiciously at all. I was looking over my offer letter last night in preparation for my day to come, and came upon the information that I was to be at the orientation an half an hour earlier and at a different building on a different campus. A sigh of relief later I was in bed and thinking about how on the ball I was. That is, until I got to the alternate location only to find nobody there. I loitered around for a bit before the security guy asked me what I was doing there. I told him that I was waiting for the orientation, when he told me that it was in fact at the main location and had just started. Not the best way to start a career...
I made it over there in time, and joined the rest of the new hires in a small conference room. The rest of the day was taken up with typical corporate orientation stuff, telling us about benefits, pay, confidentiality and some blurbs about the corporate culture. We got out around 1:30p and I went up to find my manager. That was my first view of the cube farm.
For those of you that don't know, a cube farm is a vast expanse of uniform gray cubicles. At my firm (my very very nameless firm) everyone from the CEO to the lowest man on the totem pole (that would be me) has a cubicle. There are no offices. Finding your way around is a lot like finding your way to your car in an oversized mall parking lot. You navigate with the aid of numbered columns, although I think it would be much more fun if they were designated by animals like at the zoo. I might have to bring that up at the next staff meeting.
Not finding the manager I relied instead on the group admin, who was very helpful. She gave me my schedule which is a week of various orientations. I'm not sure how much of that I should blog about, frankly. I can't imagine that it'll be that interesting, but who knows? I'd better go over the NDA.