First day at work

Today was the introduction for new employees. To walk takes more then an hour so I took a cab there. It turned out that the driver was also studying to become a CS major. He couldn't afford the more expensive schools like Berkeley, and certainly not Stanford, but would earn enough to get by studying without a scholarship.

The tuition at Stanford is around $40 000 a year (about 280 000 SEK). I’m glad I get my degree for free, and probably won’t complain as much about having to pay back to CSN afterwards. We wished each other good luck, and I made sure to tip the guy well.

At the intro we were informed about benefits, responsibilities and how the computer systems at Engineering were setup. It took 6 hours including the lunch break. Then we had our pictures taken for company ID badges.

The photographer is one of the janitors responsible for utilities at the company campus. His Norwegian father wanted to name the same as me, but his mother wouldn't allow it. Now he always greets me by name. I think he's a bit jealous :)

Then I was shown to the building were my office had been prepared, and met my boss. He's a really laid back cat. Very American. One of the few Americans who work in our department actually. About half of the staff in Engineering are from India, then its about one quarter Asian, and the rest is American, European or of other origin. Some 10% (roughly) are Scandinavian.

I got two computers to play with. (Warning - Technical content)
A dual Xeon 2.8 GHz 2 Gb ram, and a 3 GHz P4 HT workstation with 2 Gb ram, and it's SCSI all the way of course. Now that should allow me to get some work done.

I had Vietnamese for lunch with my boss the next day. He had learned to really like Asian food when he was in the navy and stationed in the Philippines.
He also likes big handguns and drives a huge pickup truck, and is a republican of course. He is well aware of how that is perceived but has a very relaxed attitude towards it. I recon there is a lot we wouldn't agree upon, and we agreed to try and avoid discussing politics.

Later after a ferocious party of Munchkin with the Bergman’s, I fall asleep. The adventures has just begun.
But time flies, and the first week just kind of swooshed by, with plenty of stories to save for later. Enjoy yourselves ‘til then.

Robert