Monday, May 19, 2008

Different but good so far

I'm on work week number five now. I can't believe the time has flown so fast.

While I'm doing day-to-day tasks that are similar to what I used to do, the environment is a bit different. We have a minimal team compared to the full-blown staff we had to support the sales team at my old job. Since we don't have a sales force we don't have to deal with all their demands and requests.

I miss the people at my old job. Since it was a bigger team, there was a nice variety of people to talk to. We had years to develop a good rapport. At the same time, I felt like few understood me well. The truth is I was probably the geek of the group. Most of the people were older, married, and with kids, or my age and drinker/partiers. I was the odd ball who liked to go swing dancing, play board and video games with friends, or watch sci-fi movies. It's not like anyone picked on me, but I could imagine them doing so if we were back in high school.

At work, I primarily work alongside two people who are both a couple years younger than me. My boss, DNA, is a newly wed and seems pretty friendly. She's yuppie-ish and what I would label a little sorority-like. So far, I like her, but I definitely need more time to get to know her.

My other co-worker is Boston. He's very friendly with everyone, easy to talk to, and has this subtle geeky way of talking. It's a funny situation because I know some of his friends through a friend of mine. We're two degrees of separation from each other socially.

Other than that, I'm still trying to get a read on people. Our assistant, Kitty, is sweet and green. Her counterpart is a tougher-skinned woman who gives you the impression that she's a no nonsense type of person you don't want to mess with. She's helpful yet I find it a little annoying that she had to give input over the cubicle wall whenever I have a question for Kitty.

I was telling Tim over the weekend about how the job is going. I'm happy so far, just drowning in work already. It's hard to be productive when you feel like you'd be better off locking yourself in a library with a stack of books and periodicals. The amount of detail I need to understand in the coming weeks is overwhelming.

The one thing that I am happy about, as I describe to Tim, is that I finally feel like I'm in an environment where I can relate to people I work with. My boss and I grew up in the same town, just a couple miles down the road from each other (weird coincidence). Boston is someone I could totally see hanging out with. I told Tim that Boston's last three Fridays have been spent either playing Settlers of Catan or holding "Battlestar Galactica" marathons. Tim immediately exclaimed that Boston should come play sports with him on Saturday and join his group for movies and video games. And I thought the only place I'd run into these kinds of people are at the high-tech and dot-com companies.

Granted, we're co-workers so I don't know how weird it would be to hang out in social groups outside of work, but it's nice to know that we understand each other on some levels. I do hope that I continue to build good relationships with my colleagues so that I feel more part of the group rather than a spectator.

2 comments:

teahouse said...

Hey, I'm so glad that the new job is going well! I started a new job just a couple of months ago, and then got married not long after. It's a lot of change at once, but change can be a very good thing!

Sitcomgirl said...

I think hanging out with co-workers is a good way to feel involved in a new place. So maybe hanging out with Boston wouldn't be too weird. But there's also a fine line of not getting too social right off the bat, it takes a while to figure out personalities/office politics. I say invite Boston out for sports this weekend but don't be all BFF right off the bat!