New Job

Well, I've finished two whole days at my new job and a lot of people have been asking me about it so I thought I would write a little something about my past two days. Also, I don't have internet hooked up in my new residence yet so my responses to you will be very slow. Today I decided to go to Starbucks and buy a small drink so I could use their free wifi for a few hours and catch up on a few things.

My first day was yesterday, I woke up early and drove to the Base, for those of you that don't know I'm working for the Navy with their GIS data (and no, I'm still not completely clear on what my job description is). I arrived on base at the wrong gate, so I had to flip around during rush hour morning traffic and go to the correct gate and get my temporary vehicle pass. Then I found my way to the building that houses HR, but apparently no one in the building really knows where HR is because I asked 4 people and they all lead me astray, but I did finally find it and everything went well. While I was being processed there was a girl waiting for me to finish and it was her first day too...and guess what???? She is now sharing an office with me in the Public Works department, she's a Planner (which is what I wish I could have been hired for, but oh well...small steps). So we are now excited to be sharing an office together since we're the only ones in the office still in our 20's. She came from a Base on the East so she already has all her badges and clearances so she gets to logon to her computer. I'm still waiting to be "put in the system" so I can get my badge. It's so weird how everything is taken care of, or not taken care of. I'm totally clueless as to what is happening or what I need to do to be a legitimate employee but no one seems too concerned about that, there is stuff I can do until I get my access cards.

So after my visit with HR I headed to Public Works and found my new co-workers. The "planning" department consists of 4 people, me, the other new girl (Erica), a man hired a month ago, and Steve. Well, Steve was showing me a power point of what I'm going to be working on in the future and it was all very fascinating and I'm excited to gain that particular experience. Then then Erica made it to the PW at the last slide. Well, there's nothing like baptism by fire. Steve then had me redo the power point to Erica. HA! That was definitely something different. I hadn't even been there for an hour and here I am presenting information as if it were my own on stuff I knew nothing about. YIKES! But it was okay, and it's not like it was for the whole department or anything. So the rest of the day we kind of toured the Base and found out where things were located, sat in on a consultant meeting, and then read through some material to fill in the rest of the day. It was an excellent day! I also found out that I get to use the gym for free and they have classes to sign up for and those are only $2 per class, so Erica and I might do one or two together.

Day 2, I got to work, went to the ID office just to find out I'm still not in the "system" so I then went back to my office and met up with Steve who gave me my first task, which is remaking some maps which were made by an engineer using AutoCAD and they're not very pretty. So I've been sitting in Steve's office on his second computer working on that for most of the day. I'm so happy to be where I am. I know I'm going to learn so much! I've already learned a few GIS tricks that I never knew and there is going to be a lot more! The office is so laid back and everyone is so friendly and willing to help. It's amazing!

That's it for now. I should try to catch up on some emails for a bit, then go home and make some dinner. I don't have TV yet either, so I've been watching Season 1 of Army Wives on DVD and reading for entertainment in the evenings. I'm sad that I am missing my favorite shows, but it actually frees up a lot of time. Now if I could just get motivated to clean the drawers and line them tonight...