1684: Honest Living

If you’ve been paying attention and/or know me, you’re probably curious about how my first week at my new job went, right? If not, well, tough, I’m going to tell you anyway.

I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, though there have been frustrating hiccups, chief among which is I’ve spent a significant part of the week unable to actually, you know, do any work due to the fact that my access to the company’s network wasn’t, umm, working.

As of close of business today, my email still wasn’t working, though I at least finally had sufficient access to be able to get a proper taste of what I’ll be doing on a daily basis. Turns out I can do the job I was hired for, which is always good to know.

Over my first couple of days, I had the opportunity to sit down with the members of my immediate team and the related people with whom I’ll most frequently be working. Without exception, they were all really nice folks, and I didn’t get the impression any of them were putting on their “best face” for the new guy; they all seemed to be genuinely nice people.

I haven’t found myself freezing up with social anxiety, either, which is something I was terrified of. Rather, I’ve found myself able to chat with my colleagues — including using their names without feeling weird — and generally relax about interpersonal reactions; no-one seems to think I’m a wanker, at least, which is nice, and my immediate team even seemed to be genuinely interested in actually getting to know me properly, which was nice.

The other interesting thing I found was that pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to over the course of the last few days has been with the company for numerous years, with many having moved around quite a bit during their time there. This suggests two welcome pieces of news to me: firstly, that it’s a good place to work, and secondly that there’s plenty of opportunity for development, advancement and sideways movement. (It may also suggest that people wanted to hold on to a stable job during the economic downturn, but I’m not one to judge; I took this job because I wanted financial stability.)

The lady who serves coffee on our floor is very nice, too. She’s writing a book and a screenplay and decided to tell me all about it while she was brewing my latte this morning. We bonded somewhat; I confessed that I’ve had a book in my head for at least the last ten years or so and still haven’t quite managed to tease it out in a finished form. Maybe one day.

So in summary then, it’s been a good week. Now it’s the weekend, I can simply switch off and forget about work until Monday morning. I won’t lie, it’s a good feeling. Whether or not it will last remains to be seen, but for now I’ll take it.

Living a normal life, eh. Who’d have thought it.

1681: New Start

So it was my first day at my new job today. I can’t really judge a lot about what it’s going to be like as yet, since as a sort of “induction” day coupled with the fact that my company network access isn’t set up yet meant that I’m yet to do any actual work, and it might even be Thursday before I get to really “do” anything.

I’m cool with that though, not because I don’t want to do any work, but rather because this is giving me the time to try and settle in a bit, learn all the rules and regulations (of which there are many — my new employer is very safety-conscious and consequently there are a lot of common-sense rules you have to make sure you follow at all times) and get to know a few people.

I spent most of today with my team, who all seem like thoroughly pleasant people. I felt mildly awkward to be sitting around watching people work over their shoulder, but my teammates all seemed more than happy to allow me to do so while talking to me almost constantly. I was glad that they were so open, helpful and honest with me because it made me feel like I was already welcome in the group rather than excluded as “the new guy”. I realise it’s probably irrational to expect to be excluded from a clique on one’s first day but, well, it’s happened before: one of the schools I worked at in particular very much had a number of established cliques, and I didn’t really fit into any of them for a while — most notably the one that consisted of my head of department and her friend from Maths — until I somehow managed to strike up a friendship with members of the English department in their top-floor hideaway far from the trials, tribulations and, well, bitchiness of the ground floor.

I don’t doubt that there will be cliques and friendship groups at my new employer. It’s sort of unavoidable given that there are several thousand people working there — it’s literally impossible for everyone to know each other. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in an organisation of that size, however; so long at the members of a team all get along with one another and with members of the teams with which they have the most frequent interactions, all will be well. And so far, that appears to be the situation, which is nice.

I’m up early again tomorrow for more training, e-learning and sitting down for some time with the people outside my team with whom I’ll most frequently be collaborating. From there, who knows? Either way, I’m feeling good about it so far; most people I spoke to today had been with the company a good few years and didn’t seem to feel like they were “stuck” — there appears to be plenty of opportunity for training, advancement and even shifting around to completely different departments, so who knows what I’ll end up doing in a few years’ time?

Hopefully it won’t be panicking over where my next paycheque is coming from. I’m hoping those days have been left far behind me.

1679: Countdown

Tomorrow is a bank holiday here in the UK — a public holiday to you Americans; I’m not entirely sure why we place so much emphasis on the “bank” part, aside from the fact that it means the banks are usually shut — and also my last day of “freedom” before I become a cog in the corporate machine.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m actually quite looking forward to starting my new job. It’s a daunting prospect, of course — it’s a new place of work, new people to work alongside, a new role and a whole new industry to be a part of — but it’s something that I’m eagerly anticipating, rather than dreading. Why? Well, partly because it’s something new to do, and something that will help me feel like I’m leading a more “normal” existence — as pleasant as the freedom of working from home can be, it’s a lonely existence that can become surprisingly stressful and trying after a while, particularly when you have no-one around you to bounce ideas off or just vent a bit of stress — and actually building a career rather than just constantly treading water.

The other reason is something that’s become readily apparent since I stepped back from the games industry. In fact, it was already becoming apparent when I was still involved with it. And that “something” is the confrontation that seems to be at the heart of the various parts of the industry’s interactions with one another on a daily basis.

Frankly I don’t want to get into a discussion of what’s been going on recently because it’s all been done to death elsewhere, and it tends to lead to frayed tempers on all sides. If you’re that curious, I’ll point out that it started here, passed through here and will hopefully end here and leave you to make your own mind up, perhaps with some of your own research filling in the blanks. If you’re shocked at what you read — if indeed you can be bothered to read all of it, since there’s a whole lot there — then good, you should be; there are plenty of things under discussion that need examining without one side complaining about “social justice warriors” and the other complaining about “neckbeards”. But unfortunately that’s never going to happen because the games industry has a collective mental age of about 14 — and yes, I count all sides of the debacle in this group in this instance — and is thus unable to discuss anything reasonably or rationally without immediately jumping to the most extreme viewpoints possible.

I’m happy to be out of it, frankly. My new job may be in a somewhat more stereotypically “boring” sector — utilities — but I can pretty much guarantee that said “boringness” (and I use that term relative to the dynamism of the games industry) will bring with it a lovely atmosphere of calm in which people don’t feel the need to aggressively state and restate their views on a daily basis; in which Internet hate mobs aren’t dispatched to harass and belittle other people; in which I can just get on with my work, come home in the evening, switch off and just enjoy some video games.

Two more days to go then. Hopefully my posts towards the end of this week will continue with a positive outlook!