Commence the Adventure in General

First Day of three of orientation.

Half of tomorrow I have to find something else to do on the clock, because the briefs are all Union oriented, and I am not allowed to witness. Wednesday I go in for two hours of a salary benefits brief, then travel a brief few miles to the Technology Center.

We had an hour of “Supervisor Time.” My supervisor was the only one to show up.

My cubical is all set up, with my name on it. Complete with a computer with 2 monitors. My email, voicemail and office phone are all set up. I will eventually be supervising a team of 7 planners. I didn’t really sign up for that. People are messy. At 29 I was a division officer and had 100 guys working for me. Didn’t enjoy it. People are messy. Databases and numbers and immediate action problem solving, while occasionally challenging are not really messy.

The orientation has thus far been a far cry from when I started there 15 years ago, when the orientation consisted of four hours of one guy talking at us, only to sit in a cubical without a computer for a freaking week. Eight hours a day with absolutely nothing to do is torture.

Unfortunately, 90% of the orientation – despite being pretty professional – didn’t apply to me. It was oriented toward the “trades” ie the guys who cut, grind and weld sheets of steel into a ship.

Drank way too much coffee.

With a 10p bedtime, that wasn’t too swift.

Embarrassed by how much money I made today sitting on my ass listening to briefs about shipyard hazmat and industrial security. No worries. They will get their pound of flesh.