Hola, compadres! Kehaar has returned. Did you miss me? Sure you did. Sorry for not being more on the ball as far as the blog is concerned, but it’s been a long week. I moved out of my condo in Greensboro last Friday, moved into my apartment in Atlanta on Saturday, started work on Monday, received all my stuff from the movers on Tuesday and spent the rest of the week exploring the area. So far I’ve gotten lost everywhere I’ve gone.
I got lost in the hallway of my apartment building the first time I walked into the place. I got lost trying to find the Target and the grocery store. I got lost trying to find Best Buy and the Home Depot. I got lost the first two days I went to work. The first time I got within a mile of the building and circled for half an hour. The second time I circled for 15 minutes. I also got lost on the way home from work the first two days. On Wednesday I drove straight to work. That’s the day I got stuck in the revolving door because I forgot to swipe my security card. That was pretty embarassing.
We have great security at work. I have to swipe my card to get into the building, at two different junctures. I take the elevator to the 8th floor and swipe my card to get into our offices. When I go to the bathroom, I have to swipe my card to get back into the offices. If I go to another floor, I have to swipe my card to get into the other floor. If I take the stairs, I have to swipe my card to get out of the stairwell. If I ever forget my security badge, I’m screwed.
Why all this security, you ask? Stalkers. We get ‘em. Lots of ‘em, evidently. The On-Air talent at The Weather Channel attracts all sorts of weather weirdos. Kinda’ like this blog.
Initial thoughts on work: I’m going to like it. The people are uniformly intelligent and motivated as far as I can tell and the office environment is fairly laid back even though everyone is very busy. That’s the main reason for no bloggage this past week. I have no time for it even though I’m the new guy and I’ve been there for only five days.
Some improvements over my previous workplace: the cafeteria, holidays and free, bottomless coffee in the breakroom. The first day I went to the breakroom I looked around for the coffee donation container. I couldn’t find one. We used to have to bring our own coffee and then make it ourselves. Now I come in around 8:15 every morning and there are three pots of coffee waiting for me. I drink my first cup and head back half an hour later. More coffee. And it’s all free.
I spend the rest of the day quivering from the caffeine overdose.
The cafeteria is also an improvement. They have a selection of five different entrees for lunch every day and at least one is a healthy choice. Finally I can get a healthy meal without having to leave the building! They also have an ATM so I don’t have to remember to bring cash every day. That’s good because I have no idea how to find the Bank of America around here.
We also apparently get extra holidays. I’ve been back and forth with the HR folks all week to make sure my vacation days transferred properly. I wanted to use one of those days to take off the day after Thanksgiving so I could fly to Boston to see Black Sheep and his family. I spent hours chasing this around only to find out that we get the day after Thanksgiving off anyway. As if that wasn’t enough, they also close the office at 3:00 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving so we can all get out of there. Apparently we also get the day after Christmas as a holiday. I can now roll over 5 extra vacation days until next year. I’m in heaven.
Other thoughts about Atlanta: the traffic is bad but not unbearable. The commute to work is about 30 minutes with about half of that spent in heavy traffic. The commute home is 20 minutes. I guess I miss the big rush hour on the way home or something. I dealt with worse traffic coming back from Best Buy an hour ago than I do going to work.
I think that’s it for now. I thought I had more to say when I started this but I seem to be losing steam. I’ll try to post more tomorrow, maybe when the delivery guys show up with my brand new Frigidaire front-loading washer and dryer from Best Buy.
Until then, thanks for stopping in!
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