Monday, August 13, 2007

The Job that Wasn't Ready

So today was my first day on my new job. Actually let me back up a minute. I went in last Tuesday for what was supposed to be several hours of computer training. This promised to be a yawn fest but turned out to be a big fat nothing. About half a dozen others and I were informed, after waiting about 20 minutes, that the class would be cancelled; they had "hoped somebody would email us" so we wouldn't have wasted our time getting there and waiting. But it seems while they had managed to procure computers for the class, alas they had no monitors.

OK, you need to understand something. The class (and the terrible communications and the terrible management) all belong to The Client. My erstwhile classmates all worked for other companies, all of whom work for The Client. I was hired on because The Client desperately wants my new employer to have the consultant manpower they feel they need. But last fall after a layoff, the client got rid of hundreds of CRT Monitors. Now that they need monitors (something they have seen coming for months) they have decided flat screens are the way to go. Cool. It would have been really cool if somebody had thought to order them.

I'm not complaining. I've worked many years with this client. I would have been shocked to have seen this work better.

But back to the present: My new boss confirmed with me after last Tuesday's fiasco that I would still be showing up this Monday. I affirmed I would and I arrived this morning. Naturally I assumed he had a work-around. I figured he'd throw me into some assistance work (pen and pad have sufficed for me through many estimates), or something and I got there with my sleeves figuratively rolled up (I wear short sleeves even in the wintertime, so my sleeves can only be rolled up figuratively).

I asked my boss what I would be doing seeing as how there was no computer there and all, and he said (with a very British, and very straight, face), "Look busy."

It turns out I have an indefinite period of time during which I am going to try to absorb as much as I can without actually working on anything. There's a guy who's been there at least a month who is still in that boat.

So I am going to learn as much as I can. When I can't learn any more without hands on experience I'm going to come up with creative things to do so I can help. Or I'll be lucky and the computer (along with its monitor) will arrive soon and I'll just be swamped.

It's all OK. I'm not the kind who lets myself stay bored for too long.

--o--
We watched a rental tonight - Like Water for Chocolate. It's one of those movies I've been meaning to see forever. I'm that way with subtitles: I dread them and then always love the movie (well usually anyway - some movies are just bad). Like Water for Chocolate is like Big Fish in Spanish. The women are all such wonderful characters and the men are perfect caricatures. I really liked this movie.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hate first days at a new job. The orientation - the training - all so incredibly boring. Good luck and hopefully you'll get your computer soon so you can be productive.