First Week of Real Work
I learned how to print bar codes, and printed off a quick example for my boss on Monday morning. I got a "Whoa, already?" response, which was pretty darn satisfying. That left me with little to do for the rest of the day (I had flow charts for the plant I was going to tour Tuesday, but nobody expected me to do anything more than glance at them).
My cubicle faces onto a block of accounting cubicles, so I've developed a bit of a rapport with a few of the ladies there. They've been swamped all week, trying to tie up loose ends for the month end. On Monday, one of the ladies' sons was with her (he'd been sick, didn't go to school, but was basically fine) because she couldn't afford to take the day off work. So I took him off her hands for the afternoon.
We had a great time. Hot chocolate and popsicle-stick bombs (well, coffee-stirrer bombs) for the most part, then I was showing him how to play flash games on my computer. To his mother's (I suspect) relief, he didn't really get the hang of the bombs, and was more keen on me building them so he could blow them up. He was very polite as well. There was a really cute moment when he pointed out (on our way back from obtaining coffee-stirrers) that he was walking with his hands behind his back just like me.
The superlative moment, of course, was this morning when his mother related a conversation they'd had, about his best friend, Tim.
So how do you top that, really?
I'm no longer the newest hire (by two or three at least, I think), and since the average company service is so low, I've been in a real jump-right-in sort of situation. I did an integral for my boss today, I've been contacting a company to get a machine parsable version of some information, and I've been trying to set up an Enterprise Resource Planning system. Not bad progress on all fronts for the first real work week.
And people are incredibly friendly. A guy I met for the first time on Monday or Wednesday made a friendly crack as I walked by today about my popsicle stick bombs, so I tossed him one on the way back to my desk (worked perfectly). Back to training next week.
My cubicle faces onto a block of accounting cubicles, so I've developed a bit of a rapport with a few of the ladies there. They've been swamped all week, trying to tie up loose ends for the month end. On Monday, one of the ladies' sons was with her (he'd been sick, didn't go to school, but was basically fine) because she couldn't afford to take the day off work. So I took him off her hands for the afternoon.
We had a great time. Hot chocolate and popsicle-stick bombs (well, coffee-stirrer bombs) for the most part, then I was showing him how to play flash games on my computer. To his mother's (I suspect) relief, he didn't really get the hang of the bombs, and was more keen on me building them so he could blow them up. He was very polite as well. There was a really cute moment when he pointed out (on our way back from obtaining coffee-stirrers) that he was walking with his hands behind his back just like me.
The superlative moment, of course, was this morning when his mother related a conversation they'd had, about his best friend, Tim.
So how do you top that, really?
I'm no longer the newest hire (by two or three at least, I think), and since the average company service is so low, I've been in a real jump-right-in sort of situation. I did an integral for my boss today, I've been contacting a company to get a machine parsable version of some information, and I've been trying to set up an Enterprise Resource Planning system. Not bad progress on all fronts for the first real work week.
And people are incredibly friendly. A guy I met for the first time on Monday or Wednesday made a friendly crack as I walked by today about my popsicle stick bombs, so I tossed him one on the way back to my desk (worked perfectly). Back to training next week.