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camwynI got up at fish o'clock and made it to the train station in time for a 6:20 train, which I deliberately did not take- it was too early for me, really, it would've brought me into Manhattan around 7:10 or so. The 6:33 got me to Penn Station around 7:30. Getting out of Penn Station took about ten minutes, between the crowding and simply crossing the distance between train and Madison Square Garden exit. I ultimately made it to the office building by 7:50 and was admitted shortly thereafter. Yay.
The people are nice. The office is nice. The head of the company says I am supposed to be working 'nineish to fiveish' and that we're all grownups, so while there are no set hours he expects us to work like grownups and will tell us if we get out of line. They consider breakfast a perk, which translates into granola bars, fruit, and several kinds of cereal (sugar AND healthy) in the kitchen free for the taking. Lunch is from local restaurants- today was Cosi, a sandwich chain- and is paid for by the company. The network is relatively healthy at the moment but the individual computers need work, and there is much to do if this company is to be properly brought up to Sarbanes-Oxley standards. And there is the ever-present question of determining what to do about MS Exchange hosting, which is cool.
I have an Aeron chair and I have an office that I share with one other person. I face the door and I've got a window on the trading floor of the company. There are maybe thirty other people working at this place. It's great, even if they do have CNBC on all the time for the financial news. I'm happy.
I would, however, like to note that there are two little pips of weirdness. One is that I was admitted to the building by one of the traders from this company, who is red-headed, blue-eyed, and named Ron. No freckles, though, and no accent. The other... well, one of the traders has a Slavic last name and an appropriate first name, although English is his first language as far as I can tell. The thing is that the standard phone greeting is "$COMPANY_NAME, this is $FIRST_NAME." It's a trifle weird to periodically hear someone answer the phone with "$COMPANY_NAME, this is Konstantin..."
At least he's not blonde.
The people are nice. The office is nice. The head of the company says I am supposed to be working 'nineish to fiveish' and that we're all grownups, so while there are no set hours he expects us to work like grownups and will tell us if we get out of line. They consider breakfast a perk, which translates into granola bars, fruit, and several kinds of cereal (sugar AND healthy) in the kitchen free for the taking. Lunch is from local restaurants- today was Cosi, a sandwich chain- and is paid for by the company. The network is relatively healthy at the moment but the individual computers need work, and there is much to do if this company is to be properly brought up to Sarbanes-Oxley standards. And there is the ever-present question of determining what to do about MS Exchange hosting, which is cool.
I have an Aeron chair and I have an office that I share with one other person. I face the door and I've got a window on the trading floor of the company. There are maybe thirty other people working at this place. It's great, even if they do have CNBC on all the time for the financial news. I'm happy.
I would, however, like to note that there are two little pips of weirdness. One is that I was admitted to the building by one of the traders from this company, who is red-headed, blue-eyed, and named Ron. No freckles, though, and no accent. The other... well, one of the traders has a Slavic last name and an appropriate first name, although English is his first language as far as I can tell. The thing is that the standard phone greeting is "$COMPANY_NAME, this is $FIRST_NAME." It's a trifle weird to periodically hear someone answer the phone with "$COMPANY_NAME, this is Konstantin..."
At least he's not blonde.
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Date: 2004-10-25 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 12:43 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2004-10-26 01:29 am (UTC)Glad it is going well. If any of your IM's work through the firewall and you need another sysadmin to talk to, lemme know :-)
And for luck ... YAY!
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Date: 2004-10-26 03:13 am (UTC)-- Lorrie
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Date: 2004-10-26 03:28 am (UTC)On the linguistic front: I as a linguist thought in English only women could be blondE, and men had to be blond (no 'e'). Do you all have any ideas on the accepted usage of this? Just curious.
Glad you are pleased. I'm pleased that you're pleased. Oh, yes, I may be off to China again in April. Can I bring you something from there?
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Date: 2004-10-26 05:45 am (UTC)I'm not going to be able to volunteer for a while, I don't think. At least not until my schedule settles out somewhat.
And, what is weird about somebody being named Konstantin - or is it the John thing? (Constantine)...
It's the John thing. He pronounces it the same way Keanu mispronounces it in the upcoming Americanized movie. (They didn't call it Hellblazer. I don't have to believe in it.) Probably he could do better at playing the part than Keanu, too, but that's neither here nor there.
And why would 'Ron' have an accent?
Not just 'Ron', but 'redheaded, blue eyed Ron'. In the Harry Potter books, Harry's best friend is a redhead (I think with blue eyes) named Ron Weasley. Of course, this Ron has no freckles, but still.
And I think you're right about the blond/blonde thing, but for some reason 'blond' looks wrong to me regardless of gender. Still, I think you're right; I just need to get out of a bad linguistic habit.
Will let you know about China when I've had the chance to think. A small kite-type thing might be nice.
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Date: 2004-10-26 06:12 am (UTC)Re: the 'kite' thing from China. I was given TWO little boxes with miniature paper kites in them as gifts when I left. If you want one, send me your postal address and I'll post it to you.
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Date: 2004-10-26 06:26 am (UTC)I'll give you a postal addr when I get home and can email you properly.
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Date: 2004-10-26 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 06:52 am (UTC)Congrats on the new job though. The 'casual 9 to 5' thing seems to be getting quite common, especially in tech I find - that's what we have here in our small group of techy people. as long as the work gets done, the hours are met, and you don't miss meetings or such things, they're cool. Which makes sense, really, when you think about it - a lot of the stuff we do isn't time sensitive in the same way (and here, with an office with two of the 4-5 people working website having sleep disorders, it's probably safest *L*).
However, the fact that they would do that with the food is still amazing me. Breakfast especially. Hell, I might even start eating breakfast regularly if someone put that policy in place here!
Damn. I should go work tech for a private company instead of a university, shouldn't I, if I want such perks *L* oh well. Congrats again - sounds very cool :)
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Date: 2004-10-26 05:47 am (UTC)Good perks so far, too.
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Date: 2004-10-26 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 11:32 am (UTC)Yay for food, yay for windows, yay for everything.
MS Exchange - I'm not even in sys admin type work, and I see how much angst and agonination and wailing is produced by consideration of whether to Use or Not To Use.
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Date: 2004-10-27 08:23 am (UTC)I do *not* want to be reminded about the Americanized bastardiaztion of Hellblazer either, even if I haven't even read a lot of that series yet.