First Day of Work

I think i must blog this. Cos I'm sure 10-20-50 years down the road, i'd be thinking back wondering how my first day went. (Also cos i received so many smses asking this same qn i might as well blog it)

I'd say I was very much jaded/dazed. Due to lack of slp and waking up in the wee hours(5.30am). Was early(7.50am), thus sat at the reception to wait for the Admin Staff to come(8.30am). (meanwhile I read a fiction bk - Sunday Philosophy Club) Saw pple enter the building, external vendors, a bunch of interns. Two other pple shared the first day of work with me. The admin staff brought us to get their pass (mine wasn't ready), and apply for laptop then showed us to our respective superiors(Mine first). My boss went something like 'has she seen her desk? (No-admin lady) I'd see her later then'. The admin lady heard 'has she seen her desk? (Yes-admin lady) Ok. I'd talk to her later'. Admin lady asked me to wait to later to look for my boss. So I was very confused. 1) No pass. 2) Nothing to do. 3) In a strange place.

Anw, the HR realised that I needed a temp pass anw, so sent me back BY MYSELF to collect a temp pass. Anw, to spare you of the agony of detailed reporting of my day, let me just summarise.

My boss brought me around to meet some colleagues. (My buddy was supposed to do so but she was on leave/MC therefore couldn't). He just went cubicle after cubicle introducing the pple's names. And i'd go shaking hands, wondering what they do, what's their rank, married or not etc. (It was comparatively less informative as I recalled during internship at Science Park I had an exciting introduction to the pple around). My boss assigned me a project, but the scope was generally internet research for the rest of the week, so since I 1) no laptop 2) no pass, I couldn't work on ANYTHING AT ALL. Feeling abit intruding (as I think i'm taking up too much of my boss' time), I told him I'd do my own stuff while waiting for laptop etc. (He did mention he'd try to find stuff for me to read, but to no avail. He IS VERY busy la). First day, I found the bosses abit intimidating, but Second day, it was easier, he's a very kind and helpful boss I gathered.

I am assigned a room to share with another lady. I actually like being in the room, despite having to share the same table. Its quite a big table anw. But first day the lady sharing the room with me was on MC. So I was really alone in the room. And of course a little lonely. I walked abt e room, looked out the huge piece of glass window down 23 storeys and across to CTE... Today I saw the Chinook fly past! Closely followed by another helicopter, is it the F50? First day I wasn't too happy abt the gather of rubbish around my assigned cabinet, but it got cleared today. So happy! Yea, I found the most comfortable spot on the table and set my laptop station very neatly le. Settled my stationeries too. My roommate showed me e stationery cupboard! And many other things (filing work hours, applying leave etc...)

On the first day, I felt very ermz.. shy? Like very different! Suddenly I'm entering this life that seems to belong to everyone around me! Adults! I dunno how I should behave. Lunch was ok. The adults were talking. Most of it I understood half. Only the rat incident and the Farm Trip did I understand more clearly. (And today I got updated that the rat incident occured last week) Yah, didn't talk to anyone really. Just intro and that's it. At most they asked abt my sch.

Weirdest was the meeting with the big boss. He didn't have much to tell me. He asked what I liked to do. Urgh! I think i'm getting sick of being asked THAT! lol... But he's nice la, keeps saying that I can always feedback and they can always try to let me do things that I like?! :O You've already done so. You gave me a job! Haha.. I told him I org. wanted to do programming in XXXX. But I'm open, ya know. Felt a little awkward, as it seems the bosses do not know my background. I like it that they do not know my bg so they won't treat me different. But I dun like it cos they cannot understand the crap the BOARD has given me the past 3 mths. Nvm. Its over. Yea, I generally felt uncomfortable with bosses, cos they're supposed to be scary creatures la. They're big and tall and old and men. But less today. Guess yday I was still grappling with the switch in environment. Today I'm better.

So the first day was alot of waiting (waited till 2.30pm to get my pass then my laptop, cos laptop is essentially unwired unless I have my pass). So after I got my laptop, things started moving a little, I realised there's ALOT to do. I started to understand abit more of what some of them talked to me about. btw, HR gave me more WORK to do than my boss. Just imagine that.

And when I went off at 6.05pm, I wondered if I should say bye to my boss(or even some of my colleagues). But didn't. Dunno, just felt strange. I duno what to do and there's no one to tell me.

P.S. My boss' first statement to me was a qn. "So what do you know abt the organisational structure?" (and i told him) he said "ya, that's actually pretty accurate". (well, what do you expect? It was drilled in since 1) 2005 (once) 2) Internship (a few times) 3) Employment Agreement (again)