Week One Boredom

It occurs to me that while I said I would be updating this every other day or at least twice a week, I haven't actually held true to this and am annoyed with myself because of it. As such, I am finally going to make a daily routine to allow me time to do as I committed myself to. Since I haven't been doing mid-week posts, this will be slightly longer as I give general recap of the first official, full-length work week at Boeing and beyond.

I finally understand why people tend to hate Monday mornings of a workweek. While in school, Mondays were fun, the first day of learning for the week, homework and new projects to look forward to, and people to visit and talk with. Unfortunately at work not of this really happens as there aren't weekend homework assignments or projects to investigate something special, there aren't friends who go out on the weekend and go camping or drive to SF and go to the water, and there really isn't anything fun about Monday morning traffic. SO I'm beginning to believe in TGIF. Of course, this is all compounded by the fact I live behind a train station AND a limberyard that starts work at 3am. So being woken up by horns at 4:30 every day, resulting in 3-4 hours of sleep at best really isn't helpful to mental sanity. Now those who remember me from Davis will say, "yea but you only slept 4 hours there too so you should be used to it right and you went to bed at 4am too." Now yea I did sleep only 4 hours most days in college BUT that's going to class or taking a bus to campus, if you miss that the world really isn't going to care. IF I missed work without calling in, well people would certainly care. Moreover, I am going to bed around 12:30-1am here which would typically result in 5+ hours of sleep or way better in general than college.

Anyway back to the point of this overview. Monday was spent basically taking online tests and being shown around to areas of the building that I haven't been to yet. Now while I enjoy tours of the factory and the different labs that I actually get access to, it's frustraiting not doing any work and just visitng. Unfortunately, Monday through Thursday were days spent entirely doing ABSOLUTELY nothing. Well maybe not nothing, but nothing that relates to the fundamentals of my job. On monday, since I finally had my computer, I spent most of the morning configuring outlook, windows XP, and trying to get some of the necessary software for work ie Matlab and Framemaker. Unfortunately both of these programs were restricted so I had to put in an order request to be able to install them. So between online training, computer configurations, and visits to the lab to see what's up that was just about all that happened Monday.

Tuesday was basically the same thing, more online training and basic paper reading of processes. I am learning about various change request forms, such as the technical paper that descibes what type of changes need to be done and another that actually documents HOW these changes ill be implemented in MATLAB. To this end, I have to say THANK YOU to Prof. Hafez of UC Davis's MAE dept. who drilled matlab into our heads. I got to talk with a guy named Kevin, who is the main algorithm programmer in our group and he basically told me that all the advanced stuff I learned from Hafez is probably never going to be needed because the aerodynamics group takes enough data to have small enough mesh grids and interpolation steps. To this end, he basically told me I am already overqualified for this job and should basically use the next 3-5 years to both train myself for my next job and get a PhD if that is my desire. He basically said that I will get bored doing the same basic thing all the time and that my skills are already beyond what is required of this group, so find the area I really want to work in Control Systems Design and transfer to there ASAP. Some will call him the grouchy old man who is stuck in his ways but is needed because he is always right, but that seems like sound advice to follow. I get the feeling I'll be getting a degree or transfering in due time if I am already that overqualified and maybe to Seattle or Mesa, AZ to work for phantom works.

Wednesday was spent doing mostly the same thing, except I had an introductory performance review with my head boss. She talked about what is expected of the average group member and how they quantify performance as well as the qualitative aspect of the communication ability of each team member and how that relates to a salary adjustment. Unfortunately for me, I started this job about a month too late to have an official end of the year performance review and salary adjustment in March, so I will only be working towards an increase in 2012 unless there is a need for it sooner based on exempliary performance. Alas, but in the end, this was to be expected all things considering. Oh and I was finally able to install matlab today after much addo about nothing. So I was finally able to work out bilinear interpolation and bi-cubic interpolations on paper and translate them to matlab. I showed my algorithm to Kevin and he seemed rather impressed that I wrote it up so well.

Thursday was yet another boring day, but I did have some formal Hazing by my bosses. I had my first official team staff meeting and one of the slides was about a lunchin offered by the head boss and the next was about rookie hazing. Now hearing what they wanted of me: donuts and treats for everyone everyday, coffee on demand, taking minutes, and other things, I pretty much knew it was a hoax. However they asked for my comments, so I got to say well " I suppose you dont really care about how much work I get done because if I am always getting donuts, coffee, lunch, and other foods I really won't ever be doing work. Also, if I am not being reimbursed then I would need a raise to support your demands and moreover if you really want me to take minutes then you cannot complain about me being snarky in response." While that kinda shut them up since I didn't really play along, the last slide was of course "dealing with an overbearing manager who makes up hazing rules in an atempt to scare the new guy." Boy did I see that coming LOL. Although I suppose it would really be no different than now, I just would be getting more food. Today was also a weird day on the people front. I have to say that people in this state are much more reserved and self-centered than in CA. Nobody wants to talk to or help a new person out and there is like this imaginary 3-6 inch bubble of personal space that cannot be crossed without seeming inappropriate. I mean in HS all the girls would hug each other all the time and this was true even in college. In college, if you had a car you would help the stragglers out if it was raining or a long way up the hill. Not on request or reward, but because that was the nice thing to do and that's just what everybody did. People don't think like that here and it's really uncomforable to live in. So I get the feeling that I kinda killed any chance I had on dating this girl I was really into, but I did finally get to talk to another girl I haven't heard from in about a month so that was good. Don't know that it was a fair trade since I can't really be comforted by CA people in person, but I'll take the ones I know and trust over the ones I don't any time.

Last day of the week was Friday, this was by far the most boring of all the days. All of my bosses were gone on vacation or business so I literally staired at my computer for 7 hours doing absolutely nothing. I finally was able to install framemaker today, which I suppose was good, but yea 7.5 hours of uselessness. The last half hour, I finally managed to get most of the software work related to load and run correctly so I was able to start familiarizing myself with it's interface. Now being a computer person, a number person, and a math/engineering nerd, interfaces aren't that hard to figure out, they just take time to see what all the sublevels are. For instance i already remember 3301 1C for fast autostarting of the radar system. These things just take moments or being written down to really be done with it. So I made some process notes, watched a bit, and yet still don't have any idea what I will actually be doing in a work related fashion. On a better note, I was finally able to play some starcraft and actually beat some silver players. I lost to a 2 bronze leagers who had well over 500 games each so I don't feel too bad about this. All in all friday was a boring boring day though. Oh and I found out my couch was coming around 1 on Saturday. Since it is here now I must say it is very firm and quite enjoyable. Unfortunately it makes for some tight corners, but that isn't a big deal.

Well that's about it for me for now, more to come later and more regularly as I now have a very defined schedule that allows for 6 hours of sleep a night if I stick to it. I will also have time to play SC every day, work out (Dain), and lounge... so until next time, enjoy your weekends all!