The Rat Race...Maybe?

Excluding the new job, the biggest group I've ever worked with was 20 people. My last job was just me and my boss. The new company has nearly one thousand spread over five floors of cubicles. At least three times a day, I walk to the bathroom past probably one hundred people I will never meet. Makes for a very different environment, to say the least.

And it's an interesting small-town-type microcosm of human behavior. I'm continually amazed by the inability of most people to understand that they can control the awkwardness of a situation. If you simply pretend (and act like) it isn't awkward, it suddenly isn't! Say, "it's cozy in here" when the twelve of us are currently crammed in a elevator by virtue of nothing other than our common start date instead of staring awkwardly at your feet. (Or laugh politely when someone else says it, thankyouverymuch) Tell the new employee it's nice to meet her and ask her what her last job was or if she's heard about bagel Wednesday when you meet me instead of stammering out your name and staring intently at the introducer for an incredibly awkward 45 seconds. I wouldn't call myself incredibly outgoing, but it's just not that hard! Know when you hold the cards in any given interaction (i.e. you're the one who's obviously more comfortable in a situation because you know either the people or the surroundings better) and then make it work!

Working for a big company has its pluses and minuses. After orientation Monday morning,:

-my ID picture came out as a bright yellow silhouette
-my keycard didn't work
-the computer wasn't hooked up to the monitor
- I didn't have access to the databases, which made it impossible for me to do anything remotely helpful (apparently, two more new people will be joining my team, so most of my for-real training will be next week)
-the people on my team kept standing up and saying things to each other like, "did you change the functionality on the S&P interface to user admin before or after the migration?"
-I had no chair

On the plus side, all but one of these problems were fixed by the next morning. And today featured bagel day in the Coyote Cafe and an Ice Cream Social (complete with a clown on stilts!) in the lobby. And I think there's a patio party tomorrow afternoon! Now, if I only understood what my job was going to be...