The first couple of weeks at a new job

The first couple weeks of a job are pretty boring.  That’s not a bad thing!  If you’re nervous about a new job or internship, it’s okay, it probably won’t be too much too soon.  Your managers and coworkers know that you aren’t going to jump on board and know everything.  They don’t expect you to be an expert on your first day.  These first couple of weeks give you the time to complete all of the learning and adjustments that you need before you get busy with project work.  Don’t take this time for granted, no matter how much you want to get started.

 Chances are, you’ll have an orientation and a ton of trainings.  The trainings may be in person or online, independent learning.  You might be eager to get going with real work, but this training is actually pretty important.  Take as much as you can, because it will help you understand the company and product before you get really involved with it.  Besides, the day will go by faster if you have things to do!

During your first week, meet other people.  If you’re invited to join the group for lunch, do it!  These first impressions can establish good relationships…and you might even get friendships out of it.  If your company has an org chart, get to know this.  If you get an email from someone or hear others talking about someone who you have not met or do not remember meeting, check the org chart. 

You should also get to know your company’s website and intranet.  The more you learn on your own, the smoother the process of locating information when you’re working on actual projects.   While you have the time, decorate your cube or office and adjust your monitors, keyboard, mouse, and chair to best fit you. 

Commuting, part deux

So as you know, I have a new job.  The commute is nearly the same, just 1.5 miles longer.  I had been in Burlington, but am now in Bedford.  I live southwest of Worcester.  Mass pike to 128 to route 3.  I know, you’re jealous of those clogged highways!  It’s 51 miles each way, but I was able to keep the same schedule I had before – 7 to 3:30 or 4.  Traffic is pretty light in the morning, and is manageable in the afternoon.  Last week, it seemed NO ONE was on vacation.  It took 1.5 to nearly 2 hours to get home.  This week, it takes 50 minutes and there isn’t much traffic at all.  Currently, I drive into the sunrise, which might sound awesome, and I guess it is, but that’s 38 miles (east on the pike) of driving directly into the blazing sun.  Oddly enough, I smile when there’s a cloudy morning.  Less solar slowdowns, no need for smudgy sun glasses and that moment when I’m almost in the building at work and realize I still have prescription sunglasses on.

How do I deal with the boredom of commuting?  Well, I’m pretty used to it by now.  I leave home at 6 and get to work at 7.  I rarely realize how long I’ve actually been in the car because I’ve done it for so long and try not to measure it by time, but instead by what milestones I’ve gone by.  On the pike, these are usually exits or rest stops.  On 95/128, it’s turns in the road and construction progress.  I’m only one route 3 for 2 miles, and by then I’m in the work zone.  Once you’ve gotten used to subconsciously recognizing milestones, you start to acknowledge when and where typical slowdowns occur.  Usually, these are by exits the closer to Boston you get, but there are still some that seem random.  You slowly begin to accept these areas and prepare for them, backing off of the person in front of you or switching lanes if you’re getting off soon.  You get used to it so it doesn’t stress you out…it’s all part of the experience and the routine. 

I used to listen to playlists on my mp3 player or iPhone.  That can get kind of isolating.  Now, I listen to the morning shows and know what times they go to commercial and who isn’t at a commercial so I can switch over.  There are some stations that have great little skits or features I wait for.  I’m starting to branch out, as sometimes the radio personalities get annoying.  Today, I happened to tune in as Mayor Manino  called in to talk about Chik-Fil-A.  That was cool, and who can resist his Boston charm?

Anyways, commuting isn’t bad.  Even if you’re driving over 500 miles a week, it doesn’t really feel it.  If you end up having to commute, don’t fret!

Laid off...but it all worked out!

It’s been awhile, but much has happened.  I was laid off from my previous Company at the end of April.  They had a huge, unexpected layoff in which, among many other things, more than half of the doc team was cut.  Severance was issued, but it wasn’t much and only served to slow the process of receiving unemployment.  It happened to rain all work week during my first 4 weeks of unemployment…depressing since those unemployment checks weren’t coming in and I had nowhere to go.  I spent a lot of time with my cat, but it wasn’t paying the bills.  My days were filled with surfing all the job board sites, applying for relevant jobs and constantly updating my spreadsheet of jobs.  I found that there weren’t many jobs because it was the end of the fiscal year.  I had a year of experience, but most places hiring at the time were looking for 10+ years.  When my eyes were tired from searching, I would clean the house or do household chores to pass the time.  After a couple weeks, I started to get into more of a routine.  That was nice.  I was only unemployed for a month and a half, but that was long enough!

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.

I applied to a company I had wanted to get into since senior year of college.  I had checked the company’s website that morning, to no avail, and a few hours later, it was posted!  It was perfect for me and I hastily applied.  I got a call back the next day.  I spoke with the recruiter who said he’d call me back after talking to the hiring manager.  The next day, I had a phone interview with the hiring manager (it was a Friday), and the next Wednesday, I got a call to come in for an in-person interview to meet with him and three others.  It was incredible!  I scurried home, the 51 miles, and sent thank you emails and wrote out actual thank you cards to mail the next day.

I waited.  I received a call from the recruiter saying things were looking great and I just had to send references and take a drug test.  I was in the clear!  They offered me the job and I gladly accepted and started two weeks later.

The moral of the story: from what I thought was devastating (losing the job), came the opportunity to work at an excellent company with other PWTC-ers and also take a raise and a slight promotion (I was an associate tech writer and am now a regular tech writer).  It’s been one hell of a year, but things ended up very well. 

A great euphonious in every box

A great euphonious in every box

Editing

There's something so sweet about hardcore editing.  This is where I feel closer to what I did in school...from personal papers and projects to working in the Writing Center.

There's no task so daunting and yet exciting as getting a hugely outdated document sans standards and being able to completely rip it to shreds, scrap things, move things, and rewrite things.

I have a picture to share, but I'm a little busy with the carnage of a massive doc!

At-work exercises?

Okay, so if you are like a ton of office workers, you spend about 8 hours a day in your chair. I don't care how ergonomic your set-up is, you're immobile and settling into a groove. Weight gain happens just from the lack of daily non-strenuous exercise (walking at UMass). I've looked at a bunch of different at-work exercise tips (this meaning at my desk and not in the at-work gyms).

I disagree with some of these and I truly believe that the people who write these have never worked in an office. Unless you have an office with no windows and a closed door, you can't run in place or jump rope or do constant sit-stand-sit-stand while on a phone call without looking like a total nut case.

• Exercise ball (yoga ball) - this would be great! I brought one to work which I thought would help with back pain from sitting in a chair and help tighten up some muscles. Unfortunately, this was a hand-me-down so I didn't have the air pump. It had let out a little air over the years and caused more pain than the chair. It disappeared into an empty cube, only to appear at the new building when a coworker "saved" it for me. Now it sits in my home office taking up space.
• As cool as it would be, it's highly impractical to have a treadmill at work. You've probably seen pictures of it on stumbleupon, and some sites will tell you it's the best! but let's be real. How do you get the treadmill to your desk? I don't know about you, but my cube isn't big enough for one. I would also be standing higher than the cubes. It would be so loud that no one could work. Uhm, eventually you'll get sweaty or tired. I'd feel gross or like I was being judged based on how long I was on it. Also, why wouldn't I just do that when I got home instead?
• Stretching - YES. This I totally agree with. It won't cause weight loss, but it will keep you from walking like an old man at age 22. I frequently crack my back (sometimes without trying) and stretch regularly (and subtly).

Stretch your neck by rolling it in a circle and then moving side to side.

When you yawn, stretch your arms out in front of you (and above your head if you're feeling risky).

Lift your feet off the floor and rotate your ankles.

Move your torso so it's facing the back of your chair as if you're cracking your back.

Push one shoulder forward and then switch.

Upon standing, arch your back and put your arms out at your sides.

You can even do some stretching in the bathroom stall.

• Walk at lunch. A lot of offices have walking trails or at least nice sidewalks around the property. Admittedly, I don't do this often at all. I usually do what nearly everyone else does, walk to the very close kitchen, heat up my lunch, and sit back at my cube surfing the web.
• Drink tons of water. Bring a nalgene or similar water bottle and fill it often. It'll help flush your system and will force you to get up more often to walk to the bathroom. If possible, take a roundabout way to and from the bathroom.
• Bring healthy snacks. Sitting in the same spot will make you tired so your body will tell you you're hungry so you can gain more energy from food even though you're sitting idly. Bring fruits and veggies or graham crackers, trail mix, etc to much on instead of pop tarts, cookies, etc.

That's it for now!

Solar Slowdown Season

Tis the season for solar slowdowns. ...if you drive east in the morning and west in the evening. Due to the time change and rotation of the earth, there are four times a year that one can encounter the solar slowdown, assuming you keep the same schedule. For days before the onset, you see the sun creeping up, nearer and nearer to the horizon directly in front of you in the morning. Currently, this is the time when I encounter the fiery, blinding beast that halts traffic. Sunglasses don't help.

Similar to the onset of the blinding sun, you can see the cars slowing down and stopping a half mile away. You near them and start to see the culprit: sun shrapnel bouncing off of cars. You watch as people try to get behind big trucks or tailgate vehicles taller than their own to use the other person as a shield. You are often left in the desert and surrounded only by other vehicles your size. Vast gaps emerge between cars without shields because it's so hard to see if the person in front of them has stopped, so the more room, the less likely an accident will happen. It feels like years that you're driving blind, creeping at a slow pace. And suddenly, a break! The sun goes behind a patch of trees or a building. Everyone speeds up, trying to get as far as they can before the inevitable sun reappears.

When there is no solar slowdown in the morning, there is often a time of solar slowdown after work. When this happens at the beginning of your commute, you long for the sun to go down so that you don't have to creep all the way home, however you realize it will be dark when you get home. Bittersweet.

During the winter, there is about two weeks where you find yourself driving into the sun both on the way into work and on the way home. This is an all-out war on your corneas. You may find yourself adjusting the seat higher up so that you are shaded by your visor, though you lose a lot of visibility and in reality, the visor creates more glare.

Beware of the solar slowdown season, but know that it won't last long. Within a week or two, you'll be driving either in already sunny skies (after sunrise and before sunset) or darkness.

Frozen Friday

It's Friday again. Yay! There's an off phenomenon that occurs every Friday at work...it's what I like to call "Frozen Friday." Time seems to freeze, as do the conversations in the office. Everyone is chugging away in their own private worlds to get home as soon as possible. Fridays also have a skeleton crew. Many people either work at home or they simply don't work on Fridays. The commute, however, suggests the opposite. Yet another frozen aspect of Friday...the roads. Everyone is jetting out early (my normal leaving time) to start the weekend and we all meet on the road. For long stretches of going 5mph.

Here are my tips for making it through a Frozen Friday.

• Work at home, if possible. Avoid the commute woes and not have that time-slowing feeling that you want to be home...because you will be home.
• Similarly, if you can leave early and/or finish the day at home, do so.
• Take breaks at work. Work consistently for awhile to get things done, but if you're running low on work, take it slow. There's nothing worse than sitting at your cube with 5 hours left without work. You feel like you've seen all of the internet already and time has stopped. Break up your work so it fills the day at a steady pace.
• Talk with your coworkers. Get some face-time in and pass particularly slow parts of the day (for everyone--don't interrupt someone if he or she is busy) with conversation.
• Do NOT take your lunch early. Try to eat a little later than usual, too, so that the time you have left after lunch until leaving is shorter.
• Sort through your email. Delete messages that you don't need, organize your inbox, and tidy up your folders. This is the stuff you are too busy to do during the week.
• If you use a time-tracking system, update your hours, etc. It's a tedious task, but it can really pass the time.
• Clean your cube. Dust, reorganize, rearrange (quietly), and anything else to improve your work space.
• Email old professors or friends to catch up with them.
• Try not to check the time frequently. I know it's hard since the clock is on your toolbar, but use some self-restraint!

Printers

You know that scene in Office Space? Yes, you do. Those guys are living the dream. Printers are evil. Technology has come so far for computers, phones, tvs, etc., yet printers are stuck in 1995. Printers are definitely the problem child of the communication family.

Luckily, there's usually one printer at work that functions as it should, yet due to the incredibly low standard of printer reliability, functioning as it should means it is the best thing you've ever had the pleasure of working with. You've learned how to delicately refill the paper tray without upsetting the balance of good and evil in the printer. With every successful print job, you love the printer more and more. UNTIL the toner runs out. Panic sets in and no one knows what to do because somehow there is never toner in the building and when there is, the printer rejects it like a transplanted organ. You consider sending your print job to another printer, but it feels unsafe. You think about what kind of a world we live in where the printer you know and love cannot be trusted and breaks your heart. You fear that another printer won't work and then you'll have two documents floating in the air, waiting to be printed (I guess it doesn't really work like that). Once fixed, you run around to the printers gathering up the shards of your broken trust in printers. You feel guilty for having wasted so much paper. And then you blame the printer. How dare it kill the rain forest and spew out forgotten or long-since printed (elsewhere) documents. Evil.

You just about never know when the printer is functioning again unless you sit right near it. This is dangerous. The printer will choose one of two times to stop working: when you have an important doc that must be printed immediately OR you printed something personal that you want to go unnoticed. You fear that your personal email, receipts, directions to a friend's house, or LOLcat that would look great in your cube will be picked up by someone else, like your boss, and you will be found out for using the printer for your personal things. In reality, this wouldn't be a big deal. But you can never trust printers and what spells they may cast.

Some companies have a privacy page printed over the document with your name on it so that you know whose doc it is and the first page is covered. This is wonderful UNLESS your printer prints that page first, in which case the last page of your document is exposed to judgmental eyes. (Yet again, a large exaggeration. Blame the printers.)

Go forth and print.

WAH (Working at home)

With gas prices always fluctuating and people having to drive farther to work, working at home is a lucky and awesome option.  The occasional work at home is great for avoiding traffic, not driving in bad conditions, and being able to go to appointments close to home (shorter commute = more work time).  However, there are some drawbacks.  There is a great comic about what happens when you work at home too much and in my chats with people, this isn't too far off, considering.

The awesome:

• More sleep
• Ability to listen to music without headphones
• Comfy chair or couch
• Hanging out with pet(s)
• Ability to do chores during little breaks (start laundry, empty dishwasher, etc)
• More food selection
• Saving on gas and tolls

The hidden dangers:

• Sleeping too late
• Spending too much time doing chores and less doing actual work
• Internet connection may fail
• Less face time with coworkers
• Feeling trapped in the house without anyone to interact with
• Making up for lost time by working longer hours

Tips:

• Don't wear your pajamas "to work."  If you're in jeans, you're more likely to be in the mindset of doing work and not lounging.
• Have an office.  If you don't have an extra room to devote to an office, designate part of one room to be your working area.  Ideally, you can have a door to shut and a desk with an extra monitor and mouse.  If you have an office, you're away from TV, bed, the door to the outside world!  You have less temptations and can trick yourself into thinking your at your cube...where you're productive.
• Be honest with yourself.  You know that you're going to do external things (chores, watch an episode, play with pets) so make a schedule and stick to it.  
• Don't work more than you have to.  You don't want to feel like you have to prove to people who are physically at your workplace that you do work by working longer and harder.  You don't want to burn out or mess up your work/relax/sleep schedule.
• Go into the office as much as you can.  You don't want to abuse your work at home privileges and you don't want to be associated with a voice on the phone or a name on IM.
• Don't do work on the couch unless you absolutely need to.  You're working, remember.

Otherwise, working at home is great.  It will take time to get used to how you handle your time and where you work best.

Student loans - bane of existence

Student loans are the plague. More of a parasite, really. You finally make good money and where does it all go? Well six months after graduation, it gets sucked away by a parasite weighing tens of thousands of dollars. Check out the amount of interest you're paying per payment. Sometimes the majority of what you're paying is interest...the stuff that didn't even pay for your degree! I started throwing down a bit of my check after my first payday....aka before the interest kicked in. It did help a bit, but what helps the most is staying on top of the loans. Even if you put an extra $50 bucks on each loan payment, you'll be tackling the beast much faster and pay less interest in the long run. Try not to set up auto-pay. That way, once a month, you have to evaluate how much you can really afford to put down...and hopefully that is more than the minimum payment. It'll suck for awhile, but then again, you're used to living like a poor college student. In the long run, you'll be incredibly glad you did it.

It's different for everyone. This is just what I found works for me.

Resumes

STOP (hammertime). But really, pause. When was the last time you updated your resume? When was the last time someone looked over your resume for editing purposes? When was the last time more than one person has?

I can't stress how important it is to have several people look over your resume before you send it out. Missing a period, shifty fonts, or a typo can cause you to lose a job opportunity. Some people won't even call you for an interview if you've submitted a less than perfect resume. You have one page to represent yourself and why you are the best candidate for a position. You are a writer and if they see that you've made a mistake on possibly the most important document you can write, they won't have much confidence in your ability to write or edit.

Do you have powerful and effective words? As a tutor, I frequently gave people the UMass Career Services pamphlet on resume writing and the list of great words to use. Seriously, review the list of words on the second page. It will definitely break up the monotony of "wrote, edited, organized."

Yet again....HAVE PEOPLE LOOK IT OVER! Send it to your professors, have your friends and family look it over. DO IT!!!!!!

Communication skills are vital

Outlook is open from the moment I sign into my computer until the moment I sign out. It is always on the right, smaller monitor. Gmail is always minimized. The majority of my communication with coworkers, family, and friends is done via email. As for coworkers, yes, it is possible and easy to simply walk to the other cube or talk across the cubes, but email gives the ever-important paper trail. Instead of saying to your boss "well I talked to so and so and they said this..." you have the actual email thread with all of the links and time stamps. This is especially important when you are waiting for feedback from a review and your reviewers haven't responded. Usually, you CC your boss so that he or she is aware of the time and content you sent your review. He or she can get the ball rolling if reviewers aren't responding.

Sometimes email is the only way to contact people. Sure, everyone has a phone, but the timing can be very off. On two products, I work with a team in India. Their night is our morning. When I come in on Thursday, their Thursday is just ending. It's vital to send emails that need responses on your tomorrow before you leave at night, otherwise, while you're sleeping, they will not be able to work on whatever it is you need.

Another major communication skill is one-on-one meetings. If you're lucky, you'll have regular check-ins with your boss about your progress, assignments, and updates. Even if you don't, you'll likely have in-person interactions. Unlike emails, you can't go and delete something you've said. You need to prepare for these interactions by listing out your assignments and progress, preparing questions, and having metrics ready.

Being a technical communicator, you shouldn't have any problems with this!

One year ago

Almost exactly a year ago, I had my first interview with Oracle. Nervous, I put on my new pants suit and ran different questions and scenarios through my head. Needless to say, the interview went very well. Time to reflect on the change a year can bring.

A year ago, I was sleeping on an ever-deflating mattress using my coat as a blanket and a couch pillow to rest my head by the sliding door at my friends' house. Sometimes it was the futon which was a bit warmer. I was living out of a bag of clothes and my backpack. I had extra clothes in my car. My roommates in my apartment were making things difficult to say the least. Until I got a new apartment, I was crashing with my best friends. It was bittersweet. As you can tell from my sleeping arrangements, I wasn't getting much sleep. Actually, I was exhausted.

Interestingly enough, one of the questions posed during the interview was about how I handle difficult situations. I was living one! I handled it professionally once I realized that the roommates would not respond to civil interactions. I sought the housing authority to make the change and until then, I stayed away. One of the interviewers had a similar experience while in school...score!

After the interview, I went to work dressed to the nines and then did a presentation for PWTC to the English major newbies. Then back to the house to do work with my best friends. They were more than welcoming and I will always think fondly of that horrible time because of the amazing friends that supported me.

Bright and early the next day, I had a meeting with Housing. While waiting in the office, I received an email from the people with whom I'd interviewed the day before. They wanted to see me two days later! Amazing news!

The two days before the interview were filled with hurried moving and shuffling all of my belongings to another building with the help of my friends between classes, work, and studies. Still sleeping at their house, I prepared for the interview. The night before the interview, I went home, as my parents' house is MUCH closer to where I was going to be interviewing (still a 45 minute drive).

I met with two different interviewers and then had lunch with the group. It was wonderful! They wanted me and I wanted them. I had the job, they just had to get the OK from way above.

After that interview, I managed to stay awake long enough to drive home and crawl into bed where I slept long and deep. When I woke up, I found it hard to comprehend all that had changed in one week. From feeling hopelessly trapped in an apartment with awful circumstances, to couch crashing, to interviewing, to a new apartment with great people, strengthened relationships with my best friends, and my future career in front of me, I was amazed and senioritis kicked in big time. My life as a working woman, the real world, was ready and spelled out. I had just under two months left in this dream world. It was a very odd and comforting place to be.

One year later...

I am at a different building (longer commute, but such is life) with the same company and the same coworkers.

I have learned a lot but am still learning.

I am preparing for a presentation to PWTC students...when under a year ago I was sitting in those seats.

I have a brand new car.

I am engaged.

I have changed more than I ever thought possible...in the best ways.

I miss college and my friends dearly, but we still keep in touch. With gchat and facebook, I talk to people from PWTC that I never really hung out with in college, and now consider them best friends.

I don't pull all-nighters.

I get sleep for the most part.

I commute 100 miles a day.

I still live for the weekends.

I still enjoy life and find new, calmer things just as fulfilling as the old wild adventures.

Time flew by, but it's worked out well. I will always love and miss my college days and have a soft spot in my heart for the two final months of college, but I was well prepared for the real world from PWTC.