Life as a Sararīman again

It's mostly good going back to paid work. I found a pretty good job where I can start making a positive difference pretty quickly. Everybody likes me and laughs at most of my jokes, so that's good. I think I have a lot of good ideas about different ways some business problems can be approached and that's valuable both to my company and to our clients. However, I am keenly aware (they use the word "keen" heaps here; and the word "heaps") that no one likes to be told about how, "in the US, we used to..." So I'm very conscious to always state, "one of the ways I've seen this done in the past is...." Then everyone is super receptive.

However, I find that by the time 5:30pm rolls around, I have a lot less energy than I used to. Having to wear a suit and tie every day (even though I'm doing heaps of Solaris administration) isn't that bad in and of itself. However, having to iron sucks big time.

My third day of work, they put me in the receptionist's desk, so I had to sign for all the packages that were delivered, and direct all the visitors to whomever they came to see. This wasn't an ideal scenario, so I came in early today and moved myself upstairs a level to an empty corner office. To everyone that asks, "Oh! Is that where they put you?" I answer, "yes." This may not work out for me in the long term, but with my spare minutes I'm typing blog posts instead of signing for packages and trying to find people I don't know.

I played soccer at lunch time today with my indoor team. We beat the very best team and have usurped them. It turns out a teammate's wife works closely with Perin at one of Perin's clients. I just sent an email suggesting we get drinks to celebrate how small the world is. My teammate's Scottish, so he's in fo sho; I don't even need to wait for an email response on that one.

The other good news is that we get free soda here. We have heaps of programmers on the level down below me (where I used to sit) but I don't know how good they are yet. When I looked in the recycle bin near the end of the day, there were only like 3-4 empties in there! And one of those was mine. Everyone knows that all programmers do is turn caffeine into code. And if they're not consuming much caffeine... Anyway, I had my first Mountain Dew in about two years. Once it hits your lips, it's so good!