One of the other milestones that I’ve reached with this trip is that this is the first time I’ve ever stayed alone in a hotel room. The first time. I’ve been on trips and I’ve been to conferences and so on before, but I’ve always shared a hotel room with at least three other people; when a bunch of us from UC Davis went to Santa Barbara for a computing services conference just last summer, we rented two hotel rooms but we all wound up sleeping in the same room. Of course, we were also all drunk and up to two o’clock in the morning watching reruns of I Love Lucy. And, of course, I’ve gone to science fiction and gaming conventions; and, of course, to sleep by yourself in a hotel room at such a convention is tantamount to blasphemy of some sort.

        So I woke up this morning, fully twenty minutes before my six o’clock wake-up call; and the first feeling I felt at that first moment was panic. "Where am I? How the hell did I get here? Oh my God, I’m in Oregon! I’ll never get to the University in time for work!" And, of course, "Where are the cats? What’s happened to Jennifer?" Hi, Jennifer! I love you!

        Which probably goes to show just how quickly I’m adjusting to this new job.

        I’m finding that the past couple of days have seemed almost surreal to me. Most of that, I’m sure, comes from the culture shock. No, it’s not the shock of going from Davis to Portland (they’re not that different after all, despite how different people may think Davis is from the rest of the world — but then again, perhaps Portland and Davis share some sort of alternate universe); rather, it’s the shock of going from a huge bureaucratic institution — the University — to a tiny little startup. At the University, overtime was severely discouraged, especially since I was an hourly employee (very few departments at the University have the budget to pay out overtime; all of the overtime I did in my last few days at the University were basically volunteer, and I never even tried to claim them); here, as an exempt employee on a salary instead of an hourly wage, overtime is pretty much expected from time to time. It was good for me at the University, where I honestly felt like I was making good progress on a project. Here, though, I’m still learning. I haven’t had much of a chance to produce quite yet.

        "Patience," my new boss advises me; "patience and flexibility. Your job here for the next two months is to learn as much as you can." Today I began seriously exploring the development environment and the directory trees, and began tinkering with the in-house middleware development tool.

        I’m also not entirely certain that I’m fitting in well with the culture here. I am, for example, I seem to be the only one here who isn’t into fast cars. I went to lunch with my boss and the partner integration manager, for example, and listened to them talk Mazda Miatas, GT’s, and so on, and the ones that they owned. The inevitable question came up: "Richard, what kind of car do you drive?" Things got kind of quiet when I replied, "Uh, a 1992 Geo Metro." Though things perked up again a bit when I added, "But I’m thinking about buying a Saturn."

        Yep, it’s a different world for me.

        Oh, okay. I’m exaggerating. This place is actually pretty fun. I miss Jennifer, of course, and I’m a bit homesick, and, of course, overwhelmed… But I believe I’m getting the hang of all this, and I know that within a few weeks, I’ll have this job licked.

        And now, work calls once again. Be well.

Richard

copyright ©2000 by Richard S. Crawford