Long time no see!
Well, it finally happened. Four months of being jobless, four months of having no purpose in life....has finally ended. I got a job at Seisint, Inc. in Boca Raton. Seisint is a corporation that takes billions
of files of data and turns it into useful information. Then they sell this information in the form of a product. For example, on Monday on CBS, Dan Rather actually did a special on our company (our building was on TV and everything) for our product called the "Matrix." After September 11th, Seisint started putting together a database product called the Matrix to help identify terrorists in our country. They won awards for it and were recognized enough to be on the Dan Rather special. There is controversy with the company however, because some people think there is a line to how much information should be shared about every single individual. I had to sign a form saying that I would never release any information I might come across about any certain person and everything that I throw away has to be shredded by maintenance.
I started my job on Wednesday, and boy have I learned a lot. There are many things that I love about my job. First of all, it's definitely challenging. There is virtually no data entry, it is all new stuff that I
need to learn. I am reading a book on Unix as I am being trained because I will need to use it in the future. I feel like I'm in school at the same time as I'm working. (I learned a little bit about Unix when I was in my programming classes, but not much.)
There was a lot of stuff that I really liked that has nothing to do with my actual job. This may seem juvenile to most of you, but to me, this is something completely new and makes me feel like I'm important. First of all,
the building is humongous and beautiful. We take up the entire parking lot. (It's in a big commerce area where there are many businesses sharing parking lots.) There are about twenty televisions in the huge marbled lobby for security reasons, and there is always a security guard on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I could come in during the weekend at 3AM if I wanted to (which I never will hopefully!) I had to take a picture for my key card which I have to use for every single door that I go into. They are very big about security since we work with such personal and classified information (we work with the FBI and law enforcement as one of our main sources of information). I have my own huge mahogany wraparound desk, with my own brand new Dell computer, and my own private phone line. I have my work email addres and. I have the title of Data Project Architect and I have many different responsibilities that I have to sort out according to importance. My second day, I was a bit overwhelmed because I had a million things to do and I
didn't know which ones to do first, but I have a pretty nice girl training me and she is right next to me. There are about 300 people in this building, ranging from programmers (who I work closely with) to accounting, to sales, to data receiving, production, acquisition...the list goes on.
Basically, my part in the company is to work with the programmers who are designing the product. We buy data from many many sources, and sometimes the data doesn't come with enough documentation to help the programmers figure out the codes. I have to figure out what these are by calling vendors. I also have to make sure that the monthly updates of data are received in a timely manner. I will eventually be running stats on the data, among other things, and I have to do a lot of other stuff that I haven't learned yet.
I have to admit, it is a bit overwhelming having a fulltime job after NEVER having one. It's kind of scary, especially when I'm getting all these things to do that I have barely learned yet. I guess I just have to get in the routine of it like everyone else in the world. I'm already ready to retire. =) I have been having a major problem with anxiety in the past year, and I finally started taking medicine for it and it got better. I figured once I got a job it would completely go away, but it has been QUITE the contrary. I had a full blown panic attack at work on Thursday, almost to the point of a nervous breakdown. Now I am dreading going back to work on Monday because I am associating it with that panic attack. I was almost on the verge of quitting, even though I know this job is great for me.
So that was my first 3 days. Some ups, some downs, but hopefully I'll get used to everything. I don't really like being so far away from my dad and sister and even from Wayne. Sometimes it takes me over an hour just to get to Wayne's house from work. It would take me about an hour and forty minutes to get to Stuart. The traffic makes it really long. If I like this job enough and I think I have a future in it, I'm probably going to move closer to it and get an aparment somewhere in West Palm. It would still be about a 30 min drive, but better than an hour!
I know this sounds dorky, but I couldn't believe it when I saw that the bathrooms had a hand sensor paper towel dispenser! I had never seen one of those but then wheN I told Wayne he said "You haven't ever seen one of those?" I guess I'm sheltered. It's weird waving your hand in front of the paper towel machine just to get a paper towel.
of files of data and turns it into useful information. Then they sell this information in the form of a product. For example, on Monday on CBS, Dan Rather actually did a special on our company (our building was on TV and everything) for our product called the "Matrix." After September 11th, Seisint started putting together a database product called the Matrix to help identify terrorists in our country. They won awards for it and were recognized enough to be on the Dan Rather special. There is controversy with the company however, because some people think there is a line to how much information should be shared about every single individual. I had to sign a form saying that I would never release any information I might come across about any certain person and everything that I throw away has to be shredded by maintenance.
I started my job on Wednesday, and boy have I learned a lot. There are many things that I love about my job. First of all, it's definitely challenging. There is virtually no data entry, it is all new stuff that I
need to learn. I am reading a book on Unix as I am being trained because I will need to use it in the future. I feel like I'm in school at the same time as I'm working. (I learned a little bit about Unix when I was in my programming classes, but not much.)
There was a lot of stuff that I really liked that has nothing to do with my actual job. This may seem juvenile to most of you, but to me, this is something completely new and makes me feel like I'm important. First of all,
the building is humongous and beautiful. We take up the entire parking lot. (It's in a big commerce area where there are many businesses sharing parking lots.) There are about twenty televisions in the huge marbled lobby for security reasons, and there is always a security guard on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I could come in during the weekend at 3AM if I wanted to (which I never will hopefully!) I had to take a picture for my key card which I have to use for every single door that I go into. They are very big about security since we work with such personal and classified information (we work with the FBI and law enforcement as one of our main sources of information). I have my own huge mahogany wraparound desk, with my own brand new Dell computer, and my own private phone line. I have my work email addres and. I have the title of Data Project Architect and I have many different responsibilities that I have to sort out according to importance. My second day, I was a bit overwhelmed because I had a million things to do and I
didn't know which ones to do first, but I have a pretty nice girl training me and she is right next to me. There are about 300 people in this building, ranging from programmers (who I work closely with) to accounting, to sales, to data receiving, production, acquisition...the list goes on.
Basically, my part in the company is to work with the programmers who are designing the product. We buy data from many many sources, and sometimes the data doesn't come with enough documentation to help the programmers figure out the codes. I have to figure out what these are by calling vendors. I also have to make sure that the monthly updates of data are received in a timely manner. I will eventually be running stats on the data, among other things, and I have to do a lot of other stuff that I haven't learned yet.
I have to admit, it is a bit overwhelming having a fulltime job after NEVER having one. It's kind of scary, especially when I'm getting all these things to do that I have barely learned yet. I guess I just have to get in the routine of it like everyone else in the world. I'm already ready to retire. =) I have been having a major problem with anxiety in the past year, and I finally started taking medicine for it and it got better. I figured once I got a job it would completely go away, but it has been QUITE the contrary. I had a full blown panic attack at work on Thursday, almost to the point of a nervous breakdown. Now I am dreading going back to work on Monday because I am associating it with that panic attack. I was almost on the verge of quitting, even though I know this job is great for me.
So that was my first 3 days. Some ups, some downs, but hopefully I'll get used to everything. I don't really like being so far away from my dad and sister and even from Wayne. Sometimes it takes me over an hour just to get to Wayne's house from work. It would take me about an hour and forty minutes to get to Stuart. The traffic makes it really long. If I like this job enough and I think I have a future in it, I'm probably going to move closer to it and get an aparment somewhere in West Palm. It would still be about a 30 min drive, but better than an hour!
I know this sounds dorky, but I couldn't believe it when I saw that the bathrooms had a hand sensor paper towel dispenser! I had never seen one of those but then wheN I told Wayne he said "You haven't ever seen one of those?" I guess I'm sheltered. It's weird waving your hand in front of the paper towel machine just to get a paper towel.