Friday 13 September 2013

Buy shares in Gillette

Well, I've made it to the end of the first week so I suppose it is time to spend a few minutes summarising week#1...

... I have met my new manager and am slowly acquiring the software and UserIds that I will need to do important things like claim expenses and fulfil my job function. This is a frustrating process for a number of reasons. Firstly these are tasks that only ever need to be done once. As a result they have been completed and long forgotten by my colleagues. Consequently it often involves a combination of questions, intranet searches and Help Desk calls to take each baby step forward. Secondly any request to the Help Desk or UserID request is an overnight job so each relatively simple task still takes a working day to progress. Finally I am acquiring generic knowledge rather than job specific know-how so have reached the end of the first week and have a laptop that is in reasonable shape but still have only the tiniest jot of knowledge about how to do my new job.

A shiny set of chisels does nothing to allay the concerns of an apprentice carpenter. He needs far more than that to knock out a reproduction Chippendale.

The rest of my time has been filled with on-line eduction courses to provide me with background information about my new client and the Piano Moving Services we provide to them. These have been OK, but there is only so much dry material delivered in a Dutch accent that I can absorb  before my attention wanders and I wonder whether I will have absorbed sufficient detail to pass the multiple choice exam at the end.

The final shock to my system is that I have shaved nearly every day this week* after working predominantly from home for the past ten years or more. The only day I wandered in to the office without having dragged a Mach3 around my chin was on dress down Friday when apparently the only attire not accepted is a Football Shirt. There is absolutely no chance of me breaking that rule but I plan on going in next week as the back end of a pantomime horse.
---
* This is probably more times than I shaved in the month of July

No comments:

Post a Comment