I’ve got through the first week in my new job, but it’s been…different.  I think the fact that I bought my first ever lottery ticket this week probably says quite a lot.  There was no ‘getting up to speed’.  No, I was thrown in head first.  The good thing is that I’ve learned a lot – about the area of the business I’ve moved to, and, well, a few other things too.

– First, I discovered I’m incapable of opening any door in the office without swearing.  They are all swipe activated and give you approximately 0.4 seconds to swipe and then open.  That would be fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that each door opens the opposite way to what you expect.  So you swipe and pull, only to discover you need to push, but then  the swipe is not longer valid and you need to start again.  THEN you find out that only one side does anything anyway.  Hence the swearing.  Grr

Push or pull? Left or right?

– I can’t turn on the taps in the toilet.  They do their own thing entirely.   I was very excited to see that the taps were all named, however.  I thought that gave things an interesting slant….but they all have ‘Franke’ on them, suggesting that if someone has indeed named them, they have done so with alarming lack of imagination.  I may have to ‘edit’ the stamps over time :o)

– There are weird people things out of the window, attached to the building opposite.  What are these?!

– There’s a posh coffee machine on my floor (by posh, I mean it uses beans and makes whooshy noises.  It may not actually be posh – I’m just very easily impressed).  I can fit eight espressos in my mug in one go.

– It takes 15 minutes to drink eight espressos.

– You should not have 3 coffees followed by eight espressos, all before 9am.  It makes you feel a bit jumpy.  And sick.

– People do not talk in this office.  I introduced myself to a lot of people in my area and they all looked terrified (And I’d not eaten so I know there was no food stuck to my face).  I asked someone whose been there 9 months or so to help with the plan I was making so I could learn names of the 30 or so people (see below), but it turns out that each of the 4 teams in the area only talk to each other so nobody knows everyone’s name.

– When you introduce yourself to someone, write their name down straight away.  I had a lovely conversation with Dave at the coffee machine (while he showed some concern over my espresso hit), only to later discover his name is John.

– And finally, I might work for a huge company with offices all over the world, but that doesn’t stop the basic problems in an old building apparently.  I’ve had to go and buy plastic boxes this week for the food and cereal I keep in my desk drawers.  Why?  Because the office has MICE!  I’ve asked Norman if he’d come up with me and sort the issue, but he’s not interested.  This could be due to the fact that last time he bought in a mouse it was headless.  Unfortunately I found the head as I put my foot in my slipper and squished it.  Maybe it would be safer to just live with the mice than start Norman commuting – it’s going to be hard enough to interact with people without having to explain away rogue mouse heads… :o)

Oh, maybe he does want to come up with me after all…