Just Another Frantic Friday

OK I can't help it. I'm updating this in the office. When I get back home at night after the work, Arnold tries to scramble into the car. He wants to go for a ride, then a walk. Of course I have to change out of my office clothes first. And therein lies the problem. Because the moment I see my bed, I flop on it. And pass out for a while.

It's not that I'm stressed or that I've been given anything major to do. I guess it's just the stress of being in a new place, among strange people. When you put an animal in a new environment, the first thing it exhibits is stress. No matter how friendly the environment.

Everyone has been nice. My desk head Kevin started the ball rolling by taking me and a bunch of others out to lunch to welcome me. It was incredibly sweet. My first day, there was a briefing with HR, a setting up of the computer and then to work. I'd met the editor in chief a few days before (coming in to the office for the meeting before I was due to start work) to be given assignments, projects to handle. She said they were short-staffed, and needed to mobilize all resources.

What this means is that I don't go for daily assignments or do the day-to-day stuff as yet. Not that I'm complaining. No, I don't complain. I just nod off at my computer.

I have a very sweet kid sitting next to me. But today, I received an email to say, I'm being moved. So all the roots I've put out in these past two days (all two of them) I have to pull up.

Oh well, when I went to Seattle way back when (I think it was 1998, during the heights of our financial crisis just after we announced capital controls and all hell broke loose) I visited Microsoft. (I didn't choose to, it was part of the itinerary). The thing I'll always take away from that experience is seeing this guy standing at the reception in shorts and nothing else while the rest of us shivered in our overcoats, it being Seattle and rainy, basically shivery weather. We turned to each other and nodded solemnly. "Must be a programmer." I stared and continued to stare because that's what I do. If Nits had been there, she would have asked me to be more discreet. As it was, I stared to my heart's content and the programmer didn't seem to mind as he was either performing or oblivious. But that's not what I wanted to tell you. When these two from Microsoft gave us a presentation about the company one of the things they said was that people change offices every six months. There were, like, 22 or 23 buildings sprawled all over this plot and because people kept changing offices, no one ever knew which office Bill happened to be in. Which was both a security thing as well as the way he liked it. Apparently, one of the Microsoft values was the ability to "turn on a dime". No roots, no habits, no getting comfortable anywhere. (Although if you were a programmer, you did have free tomato juice, a sleeping bag under your desk, and a shower so you never had to leave the office. LIKE EVER)

Everyone is polite and professional here (as I've been told over and over again). They're quiet and basically just do their work. Yesterday, there was a husky fellow wandering around and speaking loudly and when I sneaked a peek I saw that he was from some corporate. He walked around and disturbed everyone. And didn't seem to get that he was disturbing everyone, because of course, they were polite about it.

OK I need to get back to work.

I just wanted some token update and am too tired to do it at night.

I haven't settled in yet.