Today was the start of my third week of work. Life is getting better as I learn a new schedule, a new company, and a new home.
On my first day of work, I woke up at 4:30am, because in my mind it was 7:30 and I’d already overslept by half an hour. I went to the gym at 5:45a for some elliptical. Went to work at 8:30 and then was in new hire orientation all day. Orientation was over at 5pm. Shoreline Amphitheater is next door to our offices, and it turns out there was a Black Sabbath concert that evening, which made traffic a mess. To make things worse, I was trying to get to San Jose as quickly as possible to buy a car.
I finally make it to San Jose airport at 6:30 to drop off my rental car, and then the salesperson from the service I bought the Pathfinder through picked me up. Went to his office about 10 minutes away, bought the car, and then had to drive back to Sunnyvale. Dropped the car off at the apartment and went across the street for a bite to eat. A very long day ended around 10pm.
The rest of the week was less chaotic but no less stressful. It sucks being the new guy. It really sucks. Even in a terrific atmosphere like LinkedIn, not knowing who other people are or what you’re supposed to be doing or where you’re supposed to be going is stressful and unsettling. I dreaded going to work the rest of the week. The sheer volume of information being thrown at me was sobering. There was a lot of self-reflection this week, I can tell you that.
Weekends are no better. I don’t know other people and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or where I’m supposed to be going. I’ve watched more cable TV in the past three weeks than in the preceding two years. I’ll drive around for awhile, but with no real destination in mind and with the price of gas, it’s mostly wasted effort.
The second week — especially towards the end of the week — was better. First off, it was only a four day week on account of Labor Day. But besides that, I started to settle into a routine towards the end of the week.
I typically leave the house around 8–8:15, putting me at work around 8:30 or 8:45. The rest of the team works a later schedule, so I’m usually the first or second person in. I drop my bag at my desk, grab my laptop, and head to the cafeteria. More on the cafeteria in a moment. I grab some breakfast and coffee, and work in the cafeteria until 10:30 or so. I work at my desk for an hour until lunch, and then I wander back to the cafe for lunch with a few of my teammates. After lunch, I’ve been going for walks around the campus, just to get away from the laptop for a bit and clear my mind. Then I work all afternoon until around 5:30 and head home.
A few words about the cafeteria. It opened on my first day of work. Prior to that, a catering company would bring in steam trays of food every day. I had the steam tray lunch when I was interviewing earlier in the summer and it was not great. Perhaps I was there on a bad day? It was nice it was free, but if the food was always like that I think I’d be having more lunches out than I am. Now the food is amazing. For breakfast I usually have a croissant, strawberries, melon, and strawberries. They have bacon and sausages and eggs, but I generally avoid them successfully. For lunch they have a number of stations to choose from: Chinese, Indian, Vegetarian. There’s also a well-stocked salad bar (1), pizza station, roasted chicken, and I think I’ve seen pork ribs at one of the stands every day. The point is: it’s awesome. And it’s free. Definitely one of the best perks about working at LinkedIn. I’m sure I’m saving a bundle by not hanging out at Starbucks, Thai Thani, Seito, Imperium, and the Tavern all the time.
A law went into effect here in California recently that effectively barred stores from providing free bags for purchases. I’m not sure if it’s just grocery stores, but that’s where the biggest impact is felt. If you do want a bag, the store has to charge 10 cents each. The intended effect of this is to reduce the number of bags going into landfills. The actual effect is that, so far, each of my trips to the grocery has been a visit to Awkwardtown. I’m getting the hang of it, but I wouldn’t say I’ve had a “clean trip”, where nothing goes wrong, yet.
There’s sooooo much traffic here. When we were here for the interview, we never encountered bad traffic, even the day of the interview when I headed down 85 to Shoreline. It was deceiving. I saw four-lanes-each-way freeways and thought that perhaps they had overbuilt their infrastructure. When I arrived on August 24 for good, it was at 9:30am on a Saturday, so I cruised from SFO to Sunnyvale without a second thought about traffic. Driving around Sunnyvale and Mountain View on the weekend was a breeze. I have since learned that, no, CA has not in fact overbuilt their infrastructure, and that it’s kind of the opposite. The only day I haven’t encountered wicked traffic on my way to work was the Friday before Labor Day. Every other day I can be guaranteed to be in stop-and-go traffic at some point, either on the 101 or trying to exit 101 onto Shoreline Drive. And because of Moffett Field being right next to work, there are no side streets to take. I have yet to determine if riding my bike to work would be lethal; I need to attempt it early one weekend morning when the traffic isn’t insane.
So finally, I’m into my third week. The dread about going to work, felt in the first week, has been banished. I finally felt comfortable enough to go to the gym mid-day and do elliptical for half an hour. I skipped the cafeteria lunch today because I was — gasp — right in the middle of something. And I’m starting to become more comfortable being around my teammates, even if we don’t seem to have much in common yet.
Progress is being made. I’m feeling fairly confident that I’ve made the right decision about CA and LinkedIn. I’ll feel extremely confident once I actually find a place for us to live.
(1) — Though tomatoes are hard to come by, surprisingly. Doubly surprising since this is California.
Originally published at bbhart.com on September 10, 2013.