And it begins...
The first day at a new job is much like the first day of school.
I always adored the first day of school. It was always exciting and scary and had new pencils involved (I am a sucker for office supplies)
So today I started my new job, and it was just like the first day at a new school.
I did not sleep well last night because I was nervous and excited.
I mean I know Sharon and Rob and turns out one other guy on our team, and there are only 2 other people on the team other than the managers, so it is not like I don't know anyone, but I don't know databases all that well, and while deep down I know I can learn them easily, I have this fear that I will not be able to do it, and so there was a lot of not sleeping.
I was supposed to be there at 8:30 for New Hire Orientation, and of course I was there at like 8:12.
I got to the receptionist desk and there was a sign directing New Hires to wait in the break room. I was actually walking in with another girl who was a new hire so we went in and sat at a table by ourselves. There were about 4 people in the room already, but by the way they were talking and reading the paper I assumed they were not new, until the way overly cheerful woman asked if we were also new and then proceeded to chirp at us for a few minutes while the woman I had come in with and I tried to look like she was not obnoxious.
As we sat there more and more people filtered in, and suddenly I realized they were all new. I was expecting like 4 or 5 people max, and we were starting to push 25.
Then they tell us we have to move to the auditorium, and so we all file downstairs, and by the time we are all settled, there are 35 of us. That is a huge new hire class.
We get started and the first thing our HR guy does it hold up a stack of 6 folders and informs us all that these 6 people are special because they are not part of Crossfire, which is our call center. Turns out that almost 30 of the people there were temporary seasonal call center employees, and then the other 6 of us were actual full time employees. It also turns out that our HR generalist was on vacation today which is most likely why we were in with the call center people.
At any rate our orientation took about an hour longer than anticipated because there were 35 pictures to take, and half of the call center people had forgotten their id's for the I9 documentation.
Now normally this would not be so bad, but it was making lunch later, and everyone was waiting on me to go to lunch on my team. So about 12:20 they send the 6 of us who are non call center off for our benefits talk. By this point the woman doing our benefits talk realizes we are all hungry, and our managers are waiting for us, so she sort of sped through our benefits and told us to come talk to her if we had questions. It was pretty standard, and the 30 minutes she took was plenty for all of us.
In fact as she was leading me out of the conference room my manager Kay was coming to find us, because everyone was starving, myself included. I am used to lunch at 12, not 1, and I didn't really eat breakfast, so I was feeling the hunger.
I got treated to lunch at Christina's. It was a farewell to Jo, and a hello to myself and the other new guy. It was very nice.
We got back to the office around 2, and I started to settle into my cube. Turns out my computer was not set up, and I spent most of the next 2 and a half hours watching one of my co workers attempt to set up my computer. She got it mostly kind of done through much trial and error, and I am not convinced that it will all work when I need to actually use it. One of the IT guys is going to finish it tomorrow I am told.
As I was watching and listening to this woman go through things that fear that I could not do this started to come back. She was talking about everything very brokenly and like I should know what she was talking about and only half explaining things, and it started to make me rather uncomfortable.
I was saved though when she left and Sharon came over. She had me run a couple of tests, and explained things very loosely promising that we would go into more detail later and it would make more sense. She showed me twice, and then I did it twice, and as I am want to do, I got it. Of course that was just one small part of it, but from what she showed me of the other parts I think it will be no problem at all, though I am hoping she is doing more of my training, because I understood her.
I think I am really going to like this job. It was so much more laid back, and everyone was very friendly, and I think once I get the hang of what I am doing I will be fine. I am so very glad I made this change. I don't think I ever felt as comfortable with my team at Paymentech as I felt with these people in the first hour of working here (and no I am not just talking about Sharon and Jo and Rob since I already knew them, I am talking about the other people as well)
So I have a bright outlook for the future.
Tomorrow hopefully my computer will work and I can do things.
Tomorrow I will start decorating my cube (which I did not do for 10 months at Paymentech)
Tomorrow I will wake up and want to go to work.
I always adored the first day of school. It was always exciting and scary and had new pencils involved (I am a sucker for office supplies)
So today I started my new job, and it was just like the first day at a new school.
I did not sleep well last night because I was nervous and excited.
I mean I know Sharon and Rob and turns out one other guy on our team, and there are only 2 other people on the team other than the managers, so it is not like I don't know anyone, but I don't know databases all that well, and while deep down I know I can learn them easily, I have this fear that I will not be able to do it, and so there was a lot of not sleeping.
I was supposed to be there at 8:30 for New Hire Orientation, and of course I was there at like 8:12.
I got to the receptionist desk and there was a sign directing New Hires to wait in the break room. I was actually walking in with another girl who was a new hire so we went in and sat at a table by ourselves. There were about 4 people in the room already, but by the way they were talking and reading the paper I assumed they were not new, until the way overly cheerful woman asked if we were also new and then proceeded to chirp at us for a few minutes while the woman I had come in with and I tried to look like she was not obnoxious.
As we sat there more and more people filtered in, and suddenly I realized they were all new. I was expecting like 4 or 5 people max, and we were starting to push 25.
Then they tell us we have to move to the auditorium, and so we all file downstairs, and by the time we are all settled, there are 35 of us. That is a huge new hire class.
We get started and the first thing our HR guy does it hold up a stack of 6 folders and informs us all that these 6 people are special because they are not part of Crossfire, which is our call center. Turns out that almost 30 of the people there were temporary seasonal call center employees, and then the other 6 of us were actual full time employees. It also turns out that our HR generalist was on vacation today which is most likely why we were in with the call center people.
At any rate our orientation took about an hour longer than anticipated because there were 35 pictures to take, and half of the call center people had forgotten their id's for the I9 documentation.
Now normally this would not be so bad, but it was making lunch later, and everyone was waiting on me to go to lunch on my team. So about 12:20 they send the 6 of us who are non call center off for our benefits talk. By this point the woman doing our benefits talk realizes we are all hungry, and our managers are waiting for us, so she sort of sped through our benefits and told us to come talk to her if we had questions. It was pretty standard, and the 30 minutes she took was plenty for all of us.
In fact as she was leading me out of the conference room my manager Kay was coming to find us, because everyone was starving, myself included. I am used to lunch at 12, not 1, and I didn't really eat breakfast, so I was feeling the hunger.
I got treated to lunch at Christina's. It was a farewell to Jo, and a hello to myself and the other new guy. It was very nice.
We got back to the office around 2, and I started to settle into my cube. Turns out my computer was not set up, and I spent most of the next 2 and a half hours watching one of my co workers attempt to set up my computer. She got it mostly kind of done through much trial and error, and I am not convinced that it will all work when I need to actually use it. One of the IT guys is going to finish it tomorrow I am told.
As I was watching and listening to this woman go through things that fear that I could not do this started to come back. She was talking about everything very brokenly and like I should know what she was talking about and only half explaining things, and it started to make me rather uncomfortable.
I was saved though when she left and Sharon came over. She had me run a couple of tests, and explained things very loosely promising that we would go into more detail later and it would make more sense. She showed me twice, and then I did it twice, and as I am want to do, I got it. Of course that was just one small part of it, but from what she showed me of the other parts I think it will be no problem at all, though I am hoping she is doing more of my training, because I understood her.
I think I am really going to like this job. It was so much more laid back, and everyone was very friendly, and I think once I get the hang of what I am doing I will be fine. I am so very glad I made this change. I don't think I ever felt as comfortable with my team at Paymentech as I felt with these people in the first hour of working here (and no I am not just talking about Sharon and Jo and Rob since I already knew them, I am talking about the other people as well)
So I have a bright outlook for the future.
Tomorrow hopefully my computer will work and I can do things.
Tomorrow I will start decorating my cube (which I did not do for 10 months at Paymentech)
Tomorrow I will wake up and want to go to work.