Whew... done with the first week
This week was the first week of my new job. The past week has been chock full of presentations, introductions, case studies, and overall everything that you would expect from a orientation. The first few days were pretty easy, but by day three, we were enmeshed in analysis and data modeling. It's quite interesting, so that's always a plus, but the days are long and we are cramming so much into them, it's taxing.
Unfortunately, we were forced to go to this terrible, terrible scavenger hunt today to "build team sprit" or whatever they were hoping to get out of it. We had all these strange clues and just had to find what the clue was talking about and take a Polaroid of it. It's not that it was hard, it was more that there really wasn't much of an incentive to do it. No prizes, nothing, just the satisfaction of taking a shitty picture. Oh well. It probably wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but having lived in New York for 6 years now, I'm kind of past the point where I can gain pleasure out of scouring neighborhoods for random plaques and paintings.
Button and I baked those...
This week I have to go into work on Monday, but have off on Tuesday. I don't know why they are actually bothering to bring us in on Monday seeing as how I'm sure a good majority of the people in the office aren't going to be there. I feel sorry for the poor instructor that was roped into giving us a class on that day.
Last night we had a meet and greet with some of the senior consultants at my firm. We went out to a bar near the office and the majority of the people there proceeded to get totally wasted. It was rather funny because some of the other people that are in my group totally just didn't hold their liquor. One of them in particular ended up getting in a verbal dispute with some sophomore employees (from the class before us who just started in December) who happened to think they were hot shit. It was so lame. I felt like I was in high school again. I just sat and watched, keeping to myself. I am in the Business Intelligence division of the consultancy, and my Director of the New York division of Business Intelligence was out with us, and he didn't hold back at all. After he was about 4 Martinis deep, he was pretty loose lipped and just left anything go. One of the consultants was telling a story and the director stopped him mid-sentence and asked "Ummm when is this story going to get funny?" As I was speaking I said something to the effect of "So my girlfriend and I went out the other night..." and I got the "Wow...you have a girlfriend?!?" Rather rude I thought, but what are you going to do? Throw down with the director? Hell no.
After this coming week is over, the seven people that are in my group are going to be dispersed across the country. Four are in the New York office (which is actually in lame ass Jersey City) and the others are going to Atlanta and Philly. I'm glad that I'm going to be in the New York office, because apparently those that are in the other offices are traveling around 50% of the time. Last night when I was speaking to the director, he made mention that I may be assigned to a cosmetics company out in Long Island. My heart sank when I heard that because Long Island, as far as I'm concerned, could be bulldozed back into the ocean. Besides the people being just terrible, it's going to be a major pain in the ass to get out there, so we'll see. I don't know if I’ll actually be put out there yet. I was working my connections with another project manager that's on a project downtown, so hopefully he'll pull for me and I'll be put on a job in Manhattan. If I end up on Long Island, hopefully they'll get me a rental car, or I'll see about getting some sort of car of my own. I just couldn't stand having to come from Brooklyn, into Manhattan and then out to Long Island, nor do I think it'll be possible to commute that, so I'd probably end up staying there over night, which would suck. All I can do at this point is hope for the best.
Tomorrow Laura and I are thinking about going with Ryan and Fran out to Long Island....yes, I know, the irony, and going to the beach. I suppose if there is one thing a huge fucking sandbar is good for is the beaches. I don't know if we're actually going to go at this point, but at least it's something to do. Seeing as how I don't get a paycheck for another two weeks, and I whittled down my small fortune of a bank account into ummm...well... let's just say that I am lacking in funds right now. At least I have enough to pay for rent and some Raman noodles. :) Mmmmm Raman.
Before I started working at my job, I called the office to find out if they supported the Treo Smart phone. My inquiry was based on the assumption that if they used Outlook for their internal mail, then they probably weren't so concerned with network security, seeing as how Windows blows goats. Going on that assumption, I figured that the Treo would be supported. Upon arriving at work, I quickly learned that my assumptions were way wrong, and they only support Blackberrys. So looks like I'm going to be returning my $400 Treo and exchanging it for a Blackberry. I'm not super thrilled about it, but what can you do? There's no reason to have a snazzy phone if it can't get your work e-mails. Maybe I'll just say fuck it and get a Razor. Who knows. The only thing that I know for sure is that I have till Monday before my two week Sprint trial is up and I am stuck this this expensive non-functional phone.
Oh, and one last little story. Did you know that in order to find out if your cat is constipated it's going to run you around $400? Yep... fucking Seven hasn't been shitting and therefore was vomiting, so we had to bring him to the vet. Turns out his entire colon and large intestines are filled with poo. Tough shit....literally. So now we have in on some Cat-Lax. We were really worried that he wouldn't like it and it was going to be a big pain to feed it to him, but as it turns out, the little black bastard loves it. Totally can't get enough of the sweet cat-laxatives. Awesome, right? Hopefully within a day or two, we'll no longer have a cat that's full of shit. Again....fucking awesome.