Not every day can be stellar. I’m fine with that. At the moment, though, I’m frustrating the hell out of myself with the things I don’t know the answers to yet… Like who needs to review which documents, what office is responsible for some random project, the name of the go-to guy for some obscure and arcane piece of minutia. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to lose my institutional memory. I knew who those people were just by virtue of having been around for a long time. Today’s just one of those days that feels like falling off the learning cliff instead of running up the learning curve. I’ll feel a damned sight better when I’ve figured out the magic questions to ask in order to get the answers I need. In the meantime, I’ll keep my head down and powder dry. Frustrating as it is, I’ll take it any day over random chaos.
Tag Archives: new guy
Data call…
When I ask for some information and mention that it’s for the boss, the appropriate response is not to then get up, walk down the hall, get water for your plants, talk to your best girl friend on the phone for 20 minutes, eat a granola bar and then get around to sending me the info an hour later. Look, I know I’m new in town, but I didn’t get here on the turnip truck. Mkay? Thanks.
I seriously wonder sometimes if it’s my standards that are unrealistically high or if the rest of the world really is just that stupid, ignorant, or just gold fashioned oblivious to everything going on around them.
Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date
Hey new guy…
I’d like to say that the transition between career fields is more or less seamless, but I was struck today by the first inklings of the magnitude of the my current unknown unknowns… like how to print to the color printer. Yeah, I had to answer the one request the boss had of me today with “uhhhh… yeah… I don’t think I can do that… sir.” Sure, it’s not exactly a career breaking moment, but still, it was humbling enough to be brought low by office automation. And don’t get me started on the acronyms. I’m keeping a running list of the damned things to look up feverishly when I get back to my desk. It looks like I’m in flat out fake-it-till-you-make-it mode for the foreseeable future. I’ve been here before, though and vaguely remember that this part of the transition doesn’t last too long. Someday soon, I’ll even be the one spitting out unreasonably pronounced acronyms at the newcomer. Until then, it helps to be reminded that even the most humbling day here are better than being an allstar in the court of the walrus king. Such are the restorative effects of being on home soil.
Back to good…
Since life is starting to take on some semblance of normalcy again, I thought it was probably time to get back to posting more than whatever passing through wandered into my head. I wasn’t able to get into the trials and tribulations of moving in the level of detail I had hoped to cover, but I think in the next few posts I’ll be able to come up with a nice summary. The fact is, I didn’t remember moving being this traumatic (or time consuming), though in fairness, the last moving from an apartment into a house doesn’t take much effort. Moving into a rental after being use to your own place is a whole different version of complicated… Especially when the place was not quite ready for prime time when you walked in the door. The Previous tenant’s junked out Expedition is still sitting in the driveway waiting to be hauled away. The gas company still hasn’t delivered bottled propane for cooking. And of course there’s always the basement mold issue. I’m doing my level best not to go ape shit crazy about these issues, but I know if either of my properties were ever turned over to a new tenant in the condition this place was in, there would be a property manager looking for a new client. It’s a piss poor business practice and tells me all I need to know about who I’m dealing with.
Thoroughly annoying as those issues are, It’s time to focus on actually going to work tomorrow. No, I haven’t forgotten that I actually came here for a new job… Though that’s sort of ancillary to being back on the East Coast. I haven’t had a “first day” since 2003 so it should be an interesting experience. I’m glad I in-processed last week. At least the agony of the paperwork drill is mostly out of the way.
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