One Day It'll All Make Sense
Maaan, I really need to get a new laptop soon. Single core machines really just don't cut it any more. Plus I probably have a dozen hidden applications running away in the background that I don't know about just wasting away resources, and the only prescription is more cowbell a reformatting.
Maybe I should finally get a Mac this time, see what all the fuss is all about. Been thinking about maybe doing a little messing around with iPhone apps too. Then again, not too sure how well Steam would run on it. And I don't have an iPhone. So, that pretty much ruins that idea.
In any case, probably best to wait until after I get paid before entertaining any thoughts about buying a new machine.
Anyway, it's been about 2 weeks since I had my first day on the job, so I suppose it'd be fair enough to say a word or two about it. I've been meaning to write something up for a few days now, but every time I get home I end up gaming and telling myself I'll only play for 1 hour and end up going for 6 hours straight, only to realise I've missed my bed time again by too much.
So! It's really nice to see the people who run this company understand that when people start working in a new field for the first time, they can understandably be absolutely clueless about everything. Therefore, my first week on the job was to do absolutely nothing except read about what kind of software this company develops, and the ways in which to be careful to avoid causing a cataclysmic system wide screw up.
Week 2 was when I got to write my first line of code, making a little test program. And the rest of the week was marked by making more little test programs, and otherwise having my face buried in a text book on the programming language the rest of the time. It kinda makes me feel like I'm back at university again, studying some forgotten language that no one uses any more 2 weeks before the exam.
This is in sharp contrast to the induction process at my last company, where the formal process seemed to be along the lines of "Here's what we're making, here's the tools you'll be using, and here's the deadline. Get cracking."
So the programming environment this time around is in Delphi, which is pretty much to PASCAL what Visual Basic is to BASIC. With the combination of ancient programming language and feeling like I'm back in uni again, I sometimes get the feeling that I've managed to time travel back through time.
The people there are really friendly at least. And management seems to genuinely care about their staff and are concerned with more than just productivity. Not that that's not something that's important, mind you, but they just seem to know that they have people working for them, and not just faceless drones.
For example, one of the guys working in the same room as me recently had his wife admitted to hospital. The office manager/HR lady comes in and checks up on him every morning, inquiring about how he and his wife are doing. At the last place I was at, if you or someone close to you came to grief like that, they'd probably still ask you to come in and work on the weekend.
To be honest though, I'm still a little skeptic about just caring this place will turn out to be, as much as I want to believe that it'll be a place that looks after its own. I think I'll reserve judgment on that sort of thing until I've at least past my probationary period. And hope that they don't do what they did at my last work place, and that's to hire a sociopath in upper management, and a sycophant below him in middle management.
Yes, yes, I know I go on and on about that last place a lot, but believe me, it still smarts every time I think about it. But on the bright side, it was an experience I can honestly say that I went through and learned from, and it can only give me a better appreciation for when things actually do go right.
I still find it interesting that I seem to start new jobs just before Easter. My last job started a week prior, and this job has commenced two weeks prior. If I were more of a spiritual man, I'd probably read more into the whole rebirth symbolism of it all. But as it is, I'm more inclined to believe that it has more to do with companies beginning their recruitment drives early to mid March, more so than they would in the six previous months.
Anyway, on a totally different note, I had some pictures that I've taken while I've been out and about that I wanted to share with you guys. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take a photo inside the office seeing as how I share a room with 6 other guys and they probably wouldn't appreciate my distractions all that much. Plus this company seems to be fairly big on confidentiality, so I don't want to be breaching that in my first couple of weeks. But bear with me, there's some other stuff here worth noting at least.
This is a picture of the street outside my apartment. Not very exciting, perhaps, but it came about after a discussion I had with chibi_bahamut. Turns out she didn't want to believe me when I told her just how narrow the average side street is here in Melbourne.
When I went to Los Angeles, I was honestly a bit surprised at just how wide the roads are there, and not to mention how big some of the vehicles are. The street outside sarcasteak's house, for example, looked like it was wide enough for five vehicles to be parked side by side.
America probably has shotgun gauges wider than the streets here in Melbourne. When driving along a side street here, if there are cars parked on both sides and there's another car coming from the opposite direction, one of you is going to have to pull over to let the other one through. The saving grace is that there are far fewer cars (and smaller) in Melbourne, so it's probably not that big a deal. Unless you get caught up in heavy traffic.
Like these poor bastards here. It's probably not so apparent in the photo because the SUV blocks your view (bloody SUVs, always getting in the way), but this street is about the same width as the one outside my place. This was taken near my workplace as I was heading out for lunch one day, and it amused me that a cement mixer trying to get around a parked armoured car was plugging up the whole street, as well as the adjacent road as other cars were trying to get in.
Speaking of stuff near my workplace, I couldn't help but notice this little gem in one of the shop windows.
That's right. Trust some dodgy Asian place to rip off a corporate mascot. Not that that's such a big deal over here though, since we don't really have a Wendy's franchise happening. Well, okay, that's not an entirely accurate. Over here, we don't have a burger franchise named Wendy's. Instead, down here, Wendy sells ice-creams and milkshakes.
True story. In fact, I think they may even do hot dogs too. Which is great since I've been craving a good hot dog lately. It's just too bad that the only store front that I can think of is a block down from my place that I pass on the way to the train station, and they're always closed by the time I get back from work. Should try to get there before they close some day though. Curious to see if they do make them any good like the street vendors in the States do. Now those guys make some pretty tasty dawgs.
Maybe I should finally get a Mac this time, see what all the fuss is all about. Been thinking about maybe doing a little messing around with iPhone apps too. Then again, not too sure how well Steam would run on it. And I don't have an iPhone. So, that pretty much ruins that idea.
In any case, probably best to wait until after I get paid before entertaining any thoughts about buying a new machine.
Anyway, it's been about 2 weeks since I had my first day on the job, so I suppose it'd be fair enough to say a word or two about it. I've been meaning to write something up for a few days now, but every time I get home I end up gaming and telling myself I'll only play for 1 hour and end up going for 6 hours straight, only to realise I've missed my bed time again by too much.
So! It's really nice to see the people who run this company understand that when people start working in a new field for the first time, they can understandably be absolutely clueless about everything. Therefore, my first week on the job was to do absolutely nothing except read about what kind of software this company develops, and the ways in which to be careful to avoid causing a cataclysmic system wide screw up.
Week 2 was when I got to write my first line of code, making a little test program. And the rest of the week was marked by making more little test programs, and otherwise having my face buried in a text book on the programming language the rest of the time. It kinda makes me feel like I'm back at university again, studying some forgotten language that no one uses any more 2 weeks before the exam.
This is in sharp contrast to the induction process at my last company, where the formal process seemed to be along the lines of "Here's what we're making, here's the tools you'll be using, and here's the deadline. Get cracking."
So the programming environment this time around is in Delphi, which is pretty much to PASCAL what Visual Basic is to BASIC. With the combination of ancient programming language and feeling like I'm back in uni again, I sometimes get the feeling that I've managed to time travel back through time.
The people there are really friendly at least. And management seems to genuinely care about their staff and are concerned with more than just productivity. Not that that's not something that's important, mind you, but they just seem to know that they have people working for them, and not just faceless drones.
For example, one of the guys working in the same room as me recently had his wife admitted to hospital. The office manager/HR lady comes in and checks up on him every morning, inquiring about how he and his wife are doing. At the last place I was at, if you or someone close to you came to grief like that, they'd probably still ask you to come in and work on the weekend.
To be honest though, I'm still a little skeptic about just caring this place will turn out to be, as much as I want to believe that it'll be a place that looks after its own. I think I'll reserve judgment on that sort of thing until I've at least past my probationary period. And hope that they don't do what they did at my last work place, and that's to hire a sociopath in upper management, and a sycophant below him in middle management.
Yes, yes, I know I go on and on about that last place a lot, but believe me, it still smarts every time I think about it. But on the bright side, it was an experience I can honestly say that I went through and learned from, and it can only give me a better appreciation for when things actually do go right.
I still find it interesting that I seem to start new jobs just before Easter. My last job started a week prior, and this job has commenced two weeks prior. If I were more of a spiritual man, I'd probably read more into the whole rebirth symbolism of it all. But as it is, I'm more inclined to believe that it has more to do with companies beginning their recruitment drives early to mid March, more so than they would in the six previous months.
Anyway, on a totally different note, I had some pictures that I've taken while I've been out and about that I wanted to share with you guys. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take a photo inside the office seeing as how I share a room with 6 other guys and they probably wouldn't appreciate my distractions all that much. Plus this company seems to be fairly big on confidentiality, so I don't want to be breaching that in my first couple of weeks. But bear with me, there's some other stuff here worth noting at least.
This is a picture of the street outside my apartment. Not very exciting, perhaps, but it came about after a discussion I had with chibi_bahamut. Turns out she didn't want to believe me when I told her just how narrow the average side street is here in Melbourne.
When I went to Los Angeles, I was honestly a bit surprised at just how wide the roads are there, and not to mention how big some of the vehicles are. The street outside sarcasteak's house, for example, looked like it was wide enough for five vehicles to be parked side by side.
America probably has shotgun gauges wider than the streets here in Melbourne. When driving along a side street here, if there are cars parked on both sides and there's another car coming from the opposite direction, one of you is going to have to pull over to let the other one through. The saving grace is that there are far fewer cars (and smaller) in Melbourne, so it's probably not that big a deal. Unless you get caught up in heavy traffic.
Like these poor bastards here. It's probably not so apparent in the photo because the SUV blocks your view (bloody SUVs, always getting in the way), but this street is about the same width as the one outside my place. This was taken near my workplace as I was heading out for lunch one day, and it amused me that a cement mixer trying to get around a parked armoured car was plugging up the whole street, as well as the adjacent road as other cars were trying to get in.
Speaking of stuff near my workplace, I couldn't help but notice this little gem in one of the shop windows.
That's right. Trust some dodgy Asian place to rip off a corporate mascot. Not that that's such a big deal over here though, since we don't really have a Wendy's franchise happening. Well, okay, that's not an entirely accurate. Over here, we don't have a burger franchise named Wendy's. Instead, down here, Wendy sells ice-creams and milkshakes.
True story. In fact, I think they may even do hot dogs too. Which is great since I've been craving a good hot dog lately. It's just too bad that the only store front that I can think of is a block down from my place that I pass on the way to the train station, and they're always closed by the time I get back from work. Should try to get there before they close some day though. Curious to see if they do make them any good like the street vendors in the States do. Now those guys make some pretty tasty dawgs.