...And Work Begins!

Today I started my first day of training. I had to drive up to Dallas last night; my goal was to arrive around 8 or 9 pm. I got a bit of a late start, then had to go by Cracker Barrel to get an audio book (because libraries are closed on Sundays) and take Justin home, so I didn't get into Dallas until around 9:30. Also, my air conditioner stopped working early on in my drive- I think it was out of freon. No big deal. Until I couldn't find the hotel. I had gotten directions from Google Maps, but somehow I couldn't find the street I was supposed to turn on, and then when I turned around, I found that the road I had been on turned into the one I was supposed to be on, but I was already past the place where I was supposed to be. I tried turning around to go in the other direction, but found that direction blocked because of construction. Long story short, I drove around lost for about an hour and a half in my stuffy car looking for my hotel, going through all sorts of shady areas. It was very distressing.

When I finally arrived at my hotel, it was about 11. Then I had to take a shower and do stuff to get ready for my first day of work: decide what to wear, get all the stuff I need together, figure out how to get there, etc. I went to bed feeling frazzled and nervous, afraid that I would be tired all day and that people would be mean, I would be inappropriately dressed, and it would be obvious to everyone that I had very little technical expertise.

After a not-quite-long-enough sleep which was interrupted by a fire alarm at 4 am, I awoke and got ready for work. I allotted way too much time to get there and arrived about 45 minutes early, but I could hear Justin's voice in my head saying, "that will make a good impression. Early is better than late, even if you're 45 minutes early." Good point, Justin. The HR woman who greeted me was very friendly, allaying my fears of everyone being mean, and she admitted she knew next to nothing about computers, which reassured me. In fact, everyone I met at work today seemed nice, and the main IT guy said he would be happy to answer any questions we had, which is good because I am sure to have lots. All the new hires (there were 8 of us: 7 boys, 1 girl) got lots of paperwork to fill out about medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, short term/long term disability insurance, life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, and Employee Stock Ownership Plans. It was overwhelming and a little boring, but cool because it meant that I am technically a "grown up" (gasp!!! Can it be?!?!?!?!?) and will be making enough money to be "important."

Under our overwhelming stacks of forms to fill out we were each given a padfolio containing pens, pads of paper, and corporate note cards. Neat!!! Apparently my padfolio was used, because one of the pads of paper had some notes on it: call Gayle, go to costco, deoderant, etc. As I sifted through my pile of papers, I found two very similar packets about life insurance and asked the HR woman, "do we need to fill out both life insurance packets?" She seemed confused. "You have two? Where did you get that other one?" "It was in my padfolio," I explained. Her ensuing laughter alerted me to the fact that noone else had this auxilary outdated packet... whoever needed to call Gayle had also left this information in their padfolio.

Overall my first day of work was good. Tomorrow and the rest of this week I'll be learning about the company and what I'll be doing for them.