First Week

One down, only 1773 left to go (assuming I work until I turn 60)!

It was a pretty good first week. I've been itching to get back there, so it's been a pleasure to finally start my new job. There are a lot of things that are different from my old job, though, so I can tell it's going to be a little bit of an adjustment.

My new group is really young. I'd probably estimate that 70-80% of the people have been out of college less than five years. THERE ARE PEOPLE YOUNGER THAN ME! I've always been the youngest engineer - by at least eight years, so this is exciting to me.

They're all also really smart. Every other week, my division has a pizza lunch and a topical discussion forum about something technical (either someone's graduate study topics or something neat they're doing at work). I lucked out and they were having the pizza lunch on my first day. I felt a little overwhelmed once the questions portion came up - I had a sudden realization that I am now completely surrounded by incredibly intelligent people. They're all technical too. It's intimidating and exciting all at the same time. As Lynne put it, "being around smart people will make you smarter."

I do have a great reason to get my honey to take me shopping now... I need some new clothes. Now that I'm in an office that is next to the board room, I don't think I can get away with my blue jean capris and flip flops. At my last office, I dressed up compared to a lot of the rest of the group (we were in a small office and didn't interact with the customer on a daily basis), but now I definitely need to look even more professional. They told me that some people wear jeans (especially on Fridays), but I didn't see it - and I definitely don't want to be the only one sporting "casual Fridays".

I'm also adjusting to sharing an office. Most of the junior engineers in my building are set up in two-man offices. It really works out pretty well since the offices are much bigger and both people aren't in there at the same time the majority of the time. But, it is an adjustment to sharing a big office with someone else after having my own office for the last four years, even if he's only in there with me for about two hours out of the day.

The best part about my new job is that there is some *really* cool work going on not only in just my division, but the whole company. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to concentrate on, but for now I'd just like to learn as many new things as possible!

I'm glad it's the weekend, but I'm definitely looking forward to going back to work on Monday. :)