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orientation, and the first day
2003-05-11-5:34 a.m.
So much has happened, I don't know where to begin. To summarize though: things are great. Of course, entries about how great things are going don't usually get the attention that a "Oh-shit-my-life-is-fucked-up-right-now" entry would get, but that's just too bad. Everyone who's miserable will just have to find someone else to read to make them feel like their life isn't so bad, because it's all good times and sunshine for the kid. Yes sir. First off, the new job is amazing. I know I keep mentioning that, but I keep finding out new and better things every time I turn around. For example: During orientation this week, they noted that we are actually paid for travel time, when the travel time falls within our normal work schedule. That means I was on the clock for a full 8 hours on sunday, since I left my house at 6:30am, and didn't arrive at my hotel in Rochester until 5 p.m. Even better, regardless of how many hours you have or haven't worked that week, saturday is always paid at "time and a half", and sundays are always paid at double-time. So that means that they paid me for two days of "work" to fly in the first class seats that they paid for, to come to the hotel they paid for. I also got a brand new IBM thinkpad laptop on the first day of orientation. It's a p4 1.9 gig, half a gig of ram, dvd drive, 30 gig HD etc... And a portable cordless/wireless printer. Of course they forgot to give us bags for the laptops, but that's okay, because the two other guys in the class and I just took the company car they gave us for the week, cruised down the street to office depot, and bought three of the best ones we could find. Which is not a problem, because we just mail in the receipt at the end of the week with our expense report, and they reimburse us directly into our accounts. Holy shit, it's like I have a real job. Oh and as for the other two guys in the class, they were pretty cool. I was by far the youngest. Someone up there mentioned that I might be the youngest person to ever get this job, which I thought was pretty cool. So one guy was named Andy, and was from Phoenix, and used to work for Intel and another semiconductor manufacturer. He was a nice guy, but very straight-laced, sorta quiet, and very "whitebread." Married, 3 kids, loves "sports" (kinda wierd huh?), doesn't listen to music etc.. But he was a nice guy, and pretty sharp. The other guy was a fuckin' trip, his name was Rich, and hew as from Boston. He had the whole Boston accent and everything. He was a bit older, probably in his mid 40's, an electrician who was temporarily working as a grocery manager, but doing contract work for a hospital installing some of our operating room lights. He and I got along great, and were always amused with each other to no end. He was a straight forward, shoot from the hip sorta guy, and I always like loud-mouthed people like that. Over the course of the week, we all got to know each other pretty well. The first day, we all went to lunch together, and went by the bank to cash our "per diem" checks. Which literally translates from Latin as "per day", but for me means, "free money to blow on steak and beer and tipping the waitresses at Hooters ever night." And the company had already paid for free breakfast every morning in the restaurant, and lunch was provided during the day, so that left a lot of money to try and blow. Since the other guys were older, they were content to watch their "sports" in their rooms or the hotel lounge, which basically left me free to pimp around town in the company car, a big green Ford Taurus. And I don't think I have to tell anyone here how crazy the ladies go for a guy in a 5 year old Ford Taurus, if you catch my drift. I did find a pretty cool blues bar with great cajun food one night, and got lost coming back from downtown on another. All in all, it's a nice town, has everything you really need, has a lot of nice looking areas, and reasonably friendly people. It has a small town feel to it, and a decent mix of the old and new. Although I don't think I'd reflect on it so fondly if I'd been there during the other 9 frigid months out of the year. Yesterday was my first official day of work, and it was fun, and pretty easy. Apparently they're really going to pay me to do all these really fun, easy things. I mean I knew I was underpaid at my last job, but every time I turn around people are like "Wow, you know a lot" or, "You can do that too?". Apparently I had grossly underestimated my own marketability. So yesterday we just installed one of our new light systems in an operating room. It's really cool looking, it looks like the future. Seriously. The lights look like ufo's, and they hang from these hinged, fully articulated arms, which spin around 359 degrees, reach out to span about 15 feet, go from the 10 foot ceiling down to about 3 feet from the ground, rotate up/down and left/right on a gimble, move around with a slight touch, but will stay absolutely where you put them. Which all takes adjustments and all that. They can also be wired up with a very high resolution flat panel monitor mounted to the third arm. All in all, it took Steve and myself, along with another guy who works in the hospital next door, and the salesman, about 4 hours to install two of them, but that was with taking down the old lights and mounting new control panels too. But it was fun, we joked around the whole time, and everything else I'll be putting in is just as innovative and cool as what we did yesterday. Another great thing about the job: Anytime you work in the actual operating rooms and surgical areas, you get to wear scrubs. Which are the most comfortable uniforms ever invented, it's like walking around in pajamas all day. And on top of that, the surgical rooms are kept at about 68 degrees for the doctors comfort, so it's even better. I guess I should wrap this up, it's already a little long winded, and I've got a lot of paperwork and other stuff to do today, and I need to get to work on my mom's mothers day presents too. I'll be emailing everyone with my new contact info, but if I forget anyone, please let me know.
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