Many of you have been asking me how the new job's going. The short answer it that it's great so far. They're so excited that I'm there, everyone's very welcoming, and now that I'm past all of the orientation and training, I'm starting to dig into the actual work. I have experienced a wee bit of culture shock, however. Not in a bad way, mind you. Keep in mind that my last office only had about six people in our New York office. The new office? Well over five hundred. And although at some point soon I will have administrative help, I don't yet. What this means is that I have to navigate the various processes that exist for things that may sound simple, but aren't, like ordering supplies or printing a letter on letterhead. Now, ordering supplies may seem quite easy. I looking on the handy-dandy intranet under "supplies" to figure it out. Step one -- fill out a supply requisition form. I have no supply requisition forms. So for me, step one was to call supplies and get supply requisition forms. I'm used to walking over to a cabinet and grabbing a handful of file folders. Once I got the forms, I happily filled one out, and have received almost everything I ordered.
One other nifty part of the new job is the cafeteria. Not only is it fairly cheap (I don't think I have hit $5 yet on any one lunch), and convenient (you can put money on your ID card and use it like a debit card), but it's actually quite good -- I've been very impressed so far, but then again, I'm sure that after eating there five days a week for a while, one might get bored. I'll have to keep alternating with places in the new 'hood, like the Pampano tacqueria. I will admit, though, that there is a bit of that junior-high cafeteria anxiety going on -- I still don't really know many people, so I've been eating alone. Over the next few weeks I'm sure this will change -- I'm about to set up meetings with about thirty different people, all of whom are working on pro bono projects, and tomorrow I'm going to a summer associate event.
On an unrelated note, I have two words for you: Black Pearl. Get the lobster roll with some extra drawn butter.
I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. Indeed, there is a certain level of culture shock to adjust to a new business setting, particularly when there are extreme differences between what you are accustomed to and how the new office does things. It looks very good on your resume, however, and shows you are flexible and can fit into more than one type of office.
Posted by: panasianbiz | July 10, 2006 at 05:43 PM