So Far, I Like My New Job

I started a new job on October 1st.  It's a little early to tell how the job will be, but I'm optimistic.  The company is considered to be one of the top 100 best places to work in the US.  So I feel privileged.  I thought I'd start keeping a few notes on my initial observations this week, and I'm listing these in order of how I observed them.

The office I have is a nice big office.  It's not a walled office, but a cubicle type, but it's large.  It's about 4 to 6 times the amount of space that I've had on any of my previous jobs clear back to when I was a supervisor at the Williams Companies.

I don't have windows, but there are plenty of windows within eye of my office if I step out into the hall.  There is a skylight directly above my desk, so I"m getting natural light.  They draped fabric over the skylight to tone down the amount of light (and presumably heat) that comes through.

My phone is a Cisco 7961 IP Phone.  It's tied into the network and any voice mail messages are automatically routed to my e-mail so that I can get them there.  This could be an advantage, I would think, if I were not at the office and were remotely connected to the network and able to check e-mail, but not right there to access the phone.

There is a fingerprint scanner on my laptop pc.  This is cool because it is used to log into the computer.  There's no need to type in a username and password.  That's very cool.

One thing that I don't like on this job is that it is the first employer that I have had that strictly filter what websites I have access to from my workstation (the laptop).  I can't check my private e-mail (because they don't allow access to gmail).  They do allow access to google, but there are a lot of sites they don't allow access to.  It's frustrating because some of these are forum sites that I often use to get answers to technical questions dealing with software development.

I understand them filtering twitter, identi.ca, and other social networking sites; but I wish I at least to access my e-mail.  Their reasoning isn't to restrict the workstation to work-related things only; but to protect the workstation from virus infection.  Their theory is that these viruses often appear on computers due to external e-mail sights, forum sites and sometimes social networking sites.  So they are blocked.

Supposedly, there are pcs located in "public areas" in the building, but so far, I haven't found these pcs.

This employer is the headquarters of a convenience store chain.  They provide free soda to the employees.  When I heard this, I wasn't too excited, because I figured they didn't provide the kind of soda that I drink.  I try to have Diet Mountain Dew, because it's a diet drink, but it's a diet drink that tastes good to me.  Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Code, etc do not taste good to me.
To my surprise, they have Diet Mountain Dew available in the soda machine on the first floor.  So a couple of times during the day, I take a walk downstairs and avail myself to this privilege.

Currently, I am on a 90-day contract to hire arrangement.  That means that if things work out, they will hire me as a full-time employee in early January.  This will be a good thing, as their benefits are very good.  One bad thing is that they hold a dress code standard with what the store employees adhere to.  This means no beards and no ponytail.  I'll have to shave my beard and remove my ponytail.

I'm allowed to have a moustache, but I'm not sure I see a point to that.  My whole reason for having the beard is so I wouldn't have to shave it, because that part of my chin seems to be cut every time I shave.  Shaving above my mouth really isn't a problem for me.

Shaving is one of those things that I looked forward to as a kid, but as an adult consider to be a curse.  Losing the pony tail isn't really that big of an issue.  I knew the day would come sooner or later, that I'd take a job where they'd want me to cut my hair.  It's a small price to pay in order to work for such a good company.  It will be a bit of culture shock for me, I think, as I have had my hair long for the last 20 years or so.

I figured out that although I can't hit ping.fm, twitter or identi.ca, that I can make status updates periodically during the day (for benefit of friends that follow me on those sites) by sending to ping.fm either by my smartphone (which I hate typing on), or via the ping.fm e-mail interface (which is sometimes a bit delayed from when I send the e-mail).

The office is roomy and so is the entire floor that my office is on.  It's quiet compared to other offices I've been in that are this big.  I think they have room to grow, because a lot of the offices seem to be empty.

In a week or so, the group I work in will be spending two days out of town (Joplin) for an annual group outing.  They will have a few meetings, but there'll be golf, paintball, wine tasting, shopping and other activities to participate in.

Yesterday afternoon around 15:30, I heard people talking in the testing lab, which is just around the corner from my office.  The doors were open and I saw most of the team in there standing around talking.  It was casual.  They were having a few beers and talking.  This was for someone's birthday.  They limited the beers and stopped at 16:00, to give people time before 17:00 when they'd be driving home.

I think that's nice that they do this for the employees.  A lot of companies would be too uptight to allow beer, much less to allow them to goof off for a birthday celebration.

Oh, somehow I forgot to write this earlier, but as far as dress code, I've seen jeans, tennis shoes, flowery shirts, t-shirts and shorts in the office.  It seems to be a fairly casual and comfortable atmosphere to work in.