Today makes it exactly one year since I started my new job and still the question people ask more than any other is, “So how do you like the new job?”
Well, after spending a year working at the new job, I’m absolutely convinced I made the right move. There’s some “big corporation” stuff I’m far from enthusiastic about, but that seems to go with the territory. (After all, a small company has its own sort of “small company” stuff.) On the flip side, in the past year, I’ve only had to work one weekend, and only a few late evenings. That’s a huge improvement from the old job.
So, all in all, I like the new job just fine.
Category Archives: Work
Interesting Day at the Office
Monday was the last day for one of the higher ups at my office and the event was marked with a lunch time going-away party. Midway through the party, the fire alarm started going off. There had been signs posted by the elevators that morning to announce fire alarm tests, so we stayed put and listened to several short speeches. After the alarms had been going off for nearly 15 minutes, someone came into the room and announced that the building really was being evacuated.
As we walked out of the building, we saw a group of firefighters walking in, all wearing their heavy fire jackets, several carrying fire extinguishers, dragging hoses, and one or two lugging breathing apparatus. MC heard one of them saying the fire was in the building’s basement.
They let us back into the building a half-hour later. As we were walking up the stairs, several of us noticed the smell of smoke. Either there really was a fire, or else it was one heck of a realistic fire drill.
Rumor has it that the fire started when someone threw a cigar into the landscaping and the mulch caught fire. Evidently it was right in front of the intake for the building’s ventilation system. That’s how we came to have smoke in the building.
Regardless of what really happened, this is the only party I’ve ever attended that really did end with the fire department arriving.
Back to the Daily Grind
Tuesday was my first day back to work after Shore Leave. One of the standard post vacation questions is, “How was your vacation?” and my completely honest typical response is “Too short.” Today though, instead of the usual laughter, The Mad Russian explained that my vacation had been long enough. In fact, she wouldn’t have minded if I’d come back early.
It seems that the day after I left, several systems that had been working perfectly suddenly started to have problems communicating with the database. All she and MC did for two days was troubleshoot problems they were certain I could have figured out in no time.
I see no reason to tell them otherwise. It’s nice to feel needed. 🙂
Still Not Playing With a Full Deck of Cards
I got my new company photo ID today. That’s in addition to the photo ID card for the office where I work, a second card that unlocks the door so I can get into the office, and a third one that lets me into the parking garage. In addition to these four cards, which I have to take to work every day (just in case someone checks), I also have a security device (I refer to it as my secret decoder ring) for logging on to the company network. Plus I have six userids and associated passwords that I use on a daily basis. In short, I’m fairly well identified.
Photo IDs have long held a special place in nearly everyone’s list of most despised personal possessions. Mom used to have a driver’s license photo with her hair swept up in the front with the result that we all agreed it looked like she’d arrived at the DMV on a motorcycle.
I have a terrible track record with photos and this one was no exception – it looks like I’m less than 15 seconds from falling asleep.
So in other words, it looks just like me.
Multi-functional Office Equipment
In the process of signing up for the 401(k) and getting set up for direct deposit of my paycheck, a few things have come up lately where the folks at headquarters want me to fax them various bits of paperwork. This seems to be a fairly common practice and is no big deal except that I don’t have access to a fax machine.
My solution is that if something needs to be signed, I print it out, sign it, scan it back into the computer, and then email it to whomever asked for it. If they need a paper copy, they can print it out at their end. This is roughly the same process a fax goes through, except that there’s no telephone call involved and my confidential information doesn’t sit on a shared fax machine for several hours waiting for someone to come pick it up. So far the folks at headquarters don’t seem to have any objections either.
I used to have access to a fax machine, but it was recently replaced with a sofa and several chairs. They all seem comfortable enough, but so far nobody’s announced a training schedule for how to use the sofa to transmit documents
Getting Hitched
We had a meeting at work last week about a requirement for being able to support our enterprise applications during an off-hours emergency. It’s rare for there to be any problems, but it is better to be prepared ahead of time rather than panicking when something inevitably does go wrong.
Part of the solution was for everyone to provide supply both a home phone number and a mobile number. That’s a problem for me. It’s been almost 18 months since I got rid of my conventional phone line and went to a cell-phone as my only home phone.
Several other people have the same problem and asked what we should do for a second number. The answer came back that we should list our wife or girlfriend’s number.
Having neither wife nor girlfriend*, I still don’t have a second phone number.
The Mad Russian was out of the office that day, so I told her about the meeting the next day, finishing with: “So you and I have to get married.”
She laughed and asked, “OK, but who’s going to tell my husband?”
She’s quite happy with her current phone number. 🙂
*I am accepting applicants!
It's Tough Being a Guy
Take last week at work for example. At 9:30 Friday morning A., our contract administrator, came into my office and scolded me because even with the email reminder she’d sent the day before, I’d still managed to forget about submitting my timesheet on the last day of the month. I’d remembered to fill it out and everything else, but the actual submitting part had completely slipped my mind.
To make matters worse, just moments before A. walked in, my officemate Y. had solemnly pronounced that “Guys don’t remember anything.”
She was right of course. We don’t! And it’s not just birthdays and anniversaries either. We can only remember so many things, and then something’s going to be forgotten, not because we think it was unimportant, but because we ran out of room for it.
One of the items on my TODO items for Monday was to make a phone call to someone out in Michigan. The timing was such that I thought I might end up talking to a machine, so I was ready. The machine picked up and after the tone I started talking, “Hi A.G., this is Blair and I’m calling to follow up on a conversation we had a little while back. Sorry I missed you, but my phone number is 240-6… Oh God, I’ve forgotten my own phone number!”
The truth of the matter is that I didn’t forget the number, I knew all the digits. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what order they belonged in! And since this was a cell phone, there wasn’t even a helpful little sticker for me to look at. But after pausing to collect my thoughts, I managed to explain why I was calling, left my number and hung up.
When A.G. checks her answering machine, she’s in for a good laugh. And I’m certain the one after that will only set her off again. “Hi A.G., it’s Blair again. That number I left you was wrong…” I’m sure she’ll find it entertaining.
Of course, AG, Y, and A. are all women, so they can’t understand what’s going on from the guy perspective. Forgetting things is completely necessary in order for guys to survive. The truth of the matter is, if we remembered even half the stupid things we’ve done, we’d die of embarrassment. And where would that leave the women? They’d be left with a world full of absent-minded males who not only don’t remember, but aren’t even bright enough to realize that they should be embarrassed about it.
This has of course already happened.
Fortunately, I’m a guy. A couple days from now, I’ll have forgotten all about this.
Pulling a Clark Kent
The interviews were one of the most difficult parts of my recent job search. Not just the process of being interviewed, but actually getting away from the old job without raising suspicions that I was out looking.
The dress code at the old job was “business casual”, but as I’ve discovered over time, the definition of “business casual” tends to be rather variable. In the case of my former employer, it included jeans. As nice as it was to dress that way, in the event I ever decided to leave, it would have raised suspicions if I’d suddenly started showing up in interview clothes.
Part of the solution was camouflage. A few years ago, long before I began actively searching for a new position, I started showing up in “spiffy clothes” on occasion. Predictably, everyone reacted by asking me if I had an interview and I alternated between explaining it was laundry day or that I had a date that evening. (Through careful planning on my part, these answers had the advantage of being true. And when circumstances were reversed and other people showed up in dress clothes, I asked them the same question.) Before long, my co-workers became accustomed to seeing me dressed up on occasion.
But dress slacks and nice shirts only go so far as camouflage. Interviews call for a dress shirt, jacket, and the dreaded necktie. Wearing any of those to the office would have been a dead giveaway. So I pulled a Clark Kent.
There was a little park down the road from my old office. I hardly ever saw anyone there, so on my way to interviews, I’d pull in there to change into my interview clothes. I’d pull in, grab my shirt, tie, and jacket out of the trunk and quick as Clark Kent changing into Superman, I’d transform into Man-going-to-an-Interview.
Obviously the superhero routine worked because I only had to do the quick change a few times. After that, I took on a new role: Man-with-a-new-Job
Surprise!
One of the best parts of my new job is that I get to surprise Wylie. For the past two months I’ve been getting home an hour or two earlier than I used to and when I open the bedroom door, Wylie pops his head up as if to say, “Hey! You’re home early. How did that happen?”
I like surprising him. 🙂
Unemployed
It’s official. As of Friday afternoon, for the first time in nearly nine years, I find myself “between jobs.” Coincidentally, the last time this happened was also in the winter, the only difference is that the last time it happened in January.
I start the new job on Monday. 🙂