Office Induction

I had a full calendar on my first few days at work with the company induction program. I did find the chance to talk to my primary stakeholders. I restrained myself from charging into crisis-like cases. I have seen enough to be able to assess the state of the team. And I have concluded that there's still plenty of work left for me to do before I can be comfortable with things being BAU (business as usual).

First impressions: People are very helpful. whenever I'd ask somebody on where someone else sits, they'd stand up and take me directly to that person even if she's in the middle of work. This seems to be rather consistent with the folks there since I've been to the office a few times before.

Pinoy portfolio: There are three Filipinos in the company. One is my boss, who claimed that everyone else is scared of her during my interview. There's me on a management role. Then there's the Senior Test Analyst who pretty much just keeps to himself. I have felt the pressure on my job on my third day at work. Now I just need to strike a balance between meeting expectations without causing a rift on the relaxed Kiwi work environment.

The Social Scene: Yes I'm guilty. I have missed the pizza and drinks night of the social club last Thursday. Well, I do live far from the CBD and I don't have a car yet. Then I decided to skip Friday afternoon drinks at the lounge. I just hurried home just like of them since it was a long weekend. Not that I had to rush. I'll  take a peek next Friday.

Friendly Folks and Crazy Folks: I've got batman who helped setup UMC in my Outlook and in setting up my laptop to be able to access VPN. He's a kid and I guess he enjoys what he's doing as being part of IT support together with his mate. A man with a kind face and a built like Santa Claus approached me and introduced himself since he passes my cube everyday. A nice young lady with an interesting name "Ekta" spared a couple of minutes of her time talking to me. Then there's the overstressed Kiwi customer who's now based in the US. I guess it's difficult for a software engineer to transition into a customer-facing role as they seem to panic or get stressed easily with the demands of customers. I appreciated the effort of one of my stakeholders who approached me after her meeting so we can proceed with the induction. She's got a strong personality like my boss and somehow I think she's great. And the whole time I've been working closely with Dan who's accomplished a lot for the team and has been guiding me towards the ins and outs of one of my roles. He's very talented and I think he's on the right track and will go far. I have met a lot more not just face-to-face but on emails as well.

Short term goal: So the company may be smaller compared to those that I've worked with before but the environment is still similar. The work is somehow the same but of course, the organization is different. I will keep the engine running smoothly and figure out how else I can make things more efficient. And yes, I will do great!