Not much remarkable happened. There was a sign at reception with my name and welcome on top. There was another new hire in another group and we both got there at the same time.
I have my own cubicle. The office building is not a rectangle and therefore very confusing. I got totally lost once and haven't managed to find the supply room again. Not sure if it's the whole office but people in my group just seem to do their own thing. People don't eat lunch together or anything. The supervisor and the HR person for new hires are both out so they got one of the guys in the group to help me out with things. He's been working full time for a year and showed me around, introduced me to people, and helped me out with general stuff. We even went out to lunch together along with another new hire who started 2 weeks ago. He said that he didn't get a welcome lunch and that at his last company, there would be welcome lunches, goodbye lunches, and parties to celebrate random things at 3pm all the time. I half expected that too. I say half since the supervisor is out.
It feels kind of strange to be working at an American office again. I had a really good supervisor at my first internship. She and my other coworkers were especially kind also because I was in high school. I guess my group there didn't eat together either but there were plenty of group lunches for special occasions. But one of the other groups had a weekly group lunch where they all went out to eat on Thursdays. In Germany, I expected things to be foreign since I couldn't understand anyone. But my officemates were very nice people and they all sat together for lunch. I really like this sitting together for lunch thing. I mean, when else would you get to know people? Meetings?
Only other thing I noticed was that there was a lot of Chinese people. I hear people speaking Chinese around the office all the time. There are good handful of people with other accents. I wonder if they're transfers from the international offices. I should find out.
Anyway, as an effort to get to know the people in my group, I think I'll go around and say good morning and goodbye to everyone everyday. My officemates in Germany did this and I think it's really cool. Oh yeah, people in this office come in really early. One of the guys says he comes in at 6:30am and he's the earliest. The other people come in between 7-9am. I think I'll go at 8am.
1 comment:
Hmm, your workplace seems mildly corporate. It’s always interesting how different these places are. My place here is more social, at least in the departments. My desk is in a high traffic area, so lots of people coming by, saying hi, visiting my supervisor…lots of traffic. The first week I had lunch with my co-worker, and sometimes my boss, but then he got too busy and my co-worker ditched me for her friend that she’s living with until she can find permanent housing (which, she needs to get her work visa first. So it’s very complicated). So I’ve been eating lunch with Anya. Kind of nice to have someone you know to have lunch consistently with. Last yr during the summer I wasn’t sure what to do, but they had take-out. This place doesn’t have take-out, and plus we’re basically the only 2 interns anyhow. I wish there were more events for meeting people in the building. There seem to be some younger looking people, but we don’t know if they speak English, who they work for, etc.
I think one of the things I put on my priority list for the summer was to find a place that had lots of interns, (like those consulting companies) so that they would have an internship program/events. But actually, it’s ok, b/c I think being in France is the trade-off b/c I’m always gone on wkends anyways…would have been nice last summer, b/c I was sort of lonely the first few weeks (and then I met some more people and it got better—there were more interns there than there are here).
Oh, MISTI Erin is supposed to come visit in 2 weeks. LOL. She wants to take pictures.
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