A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

So after two weeks of unemployment, I was back at work today. I was told to be at the office at 9:00 am to start my orientation. I was on the road by 7:00 am and rolled into Saskatoon at about 8:30, finally arriving at the office at around 8:45. The drive was not too bad – a totally clear morning giving me a chance to see the sunrise at exactly 8:03. The flat prairie landscape makes this an easy target.

The first day at the office was a typical first day on the job. Filled out some forms, went over some HR policies and other general company information. I was shown to my office where I had a guy show me some of the systems I have access to. I’ve never had my own office, so this will take a little getting used to. I think I may miss the cubicle setting – I really like being able to just chat with my neighbours. But I guess having an office has its advantages as well.

After getting some of the basic things out of the way I met with project lead and we went over some of the stuff I had done in the past and what type of stuff I would be doing at the new place. We didn’t get into any real details, but I’m sure it won’t be long before that comes. After a presentation / lunch, the lead took me around the office to meet everyone. I think the company is up to 99 people, so this took a little while. It was good to see everyone and put faces to some names. I think I remember only about 5% percent of the names.

The rest of the afternoon, myself and my ‘buddy for the month’ tried to get my development environment up and running. We ran into a few snags that we couldn’t get solved before day’s end. Around 5:00 I noticed everyone starting to file out of the office, so I decided to pack it up around 5:15.

I was on the highway at about 5:30 and got back to Wilkie at seven bells. I was pretty tired after the long day, but hopefully I get used to it in the next week or so. Thankfully the drive is a quiet one, giving me some time to chill and listen to some music. It’s now ten bells and I think I’m gonna hit the hay. Three hours at home and it’s already time for bed. I guess the next month will pretty much consist of sleeping, driving, and working. And to top things off I’ll be leaving around six in the morning so I can be at the office by 8:00. The good news is that the new company looks pretty solid and everything should work out just fine. I’m a little anxious to get started on some real work, but I’m sure that will come in huge waves pretty soon. Just gotta think ahead to December and everything should be smooth rolling.

Since I don’t take possession of my new pad in Saskatoon until December, I will be staying with my parents in Wilkie, Saskatchewan for the time being. Even though I grew up in this small town of 1400 people, you tend to forget the way some things are here. Living in Saskatoon for eight years, and then Guelph for six, I got used to lots of things that come with living in a city. Here’s just a few examples of what I am talking about.

Despite having the best Chinese food in the western world, the service is a little questionable at a local restaurant. About a week ago my dad and I decided to order some stellar Ginger Beef from the aforementioned eatery, so I called in to place my order. After the phone rang about ten times, someone finally picked up. Expecting to get a standard greeting such as, “Thanks for calling, how can I help you?”, I instead got a, “What you want?” Taken by surprise, it took me a couple seconds to respond. I placed my order and the person on the other side hung up without saying anything. It was a little strange, but when I went to pick up the order, everything was right – and the ginger beef was in fact, stellar.

Yesterday I was feeling a little bored so I decided to go watch some high school 6 man football playoffs – yes 6 man football. Despite freezing my butt off for the entire game, I managed to stick around and watch my alma mater lose. I did manage to fire off a few good photos during the game, so it wasn’t a complete write-off. Following the game I headed to one of the grocery stores to pick up a few things (during my high school years I actually worked at this grocery store as a bag / delivery boy).

Since I was going to be buying a few things I grabbed a shopping cart. You know those little shopping carts they have for kids at the ‘big’ grocery stores to keep them occupied? Well, I kid you not, that is what these carts were like. Anyway, the first order of business was to grab a few things from the meat department. I’m usually accustomed to having a pretty good choice of stuff to choose from. Well, that wasn’t quite the case at my old place of employment. I needed a couple chicken breasts and a beef roast. Lucky I got there when I did because there was exactly one ‘bulk pack’ of ten breasts and one big-ass beef roast. I then headed over to the bakery section to grab some bulk whole wheat buns, but there were none left so I had to settle for hamburger buns. I guess I did manage to get everything I needed, but I’m not sure that I could shop here all the time. But what I was happy about was the Old Dutch Chips that are not available east of Manitoba. I did miss those.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am looking forward to getting back to Saskatoon so I can do some real grocery shopping (but I will miss the Ginger Beef, and the comical service). This may seem sad, but I love shopping for groceries. It is not odd for me to head to the market when I’m bored – seriously.

After about a month, I finally start my new job in a couple of days. After living in Guelph, Ontario for almost six years and working in a huge insurance company’s I.T. department, I will transition into working for a small, fast-paced software development company in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Even though my title stays relatively the same (Senior Software Developer), I’m not too sure as to what my responsibilities will be in the new company.

When the job was offered to me, I was told that they wanted to, “bring me in to mould their young developers”. I’m not sure what to make of that statement, but I still consider myself to be young – I mean, I’m only thirty years old (but could pass for at least 23 – haha!). I guess they meant, “mould thier less experienced developers”. I guess that makes a little more sense, but it still makes me a little nervous. I suppose the VP who hired me knows what he is doing.

I was told to show up at the office at 9:00 am. Since I don’t get possession of my townhome until December 1st, I will be commuting from my parents’ place in Wilkie, Saskatchewan for the first month. This will consist of a 90 minute drive each way which I’m sure will start to lose its appeal after about a week. I guess knowing that I will be getting mother’s home cooking for a month will be good incentive. Plus if need be, I may split the week up slightly and stay a couple of days a week in Saskatoon. I know enough people there that this shouldn’t be a problem.

Well, since I’m going to be molding some young developers starting tomorrow, I better start reading up a bit on Microsoft’s .NET Framework for C#. This may not mean much to any non-techies out there, but since I have been a J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) guy my entire career, this is a little bit daunting. Ahh – once you know one programming language, they all look pretty much the same – right?