Job update

I survived my first week at the new job. This clearly is going to be a busy one, but that's good. It makes the days go faster.

I do like the small company feel. The fact that it's not small (11,000+ employees in 13 states) hasn't made them abandon the small feel, since it's still privately owned. The guys who founded it over 30 years ago are in the office every day, and the senior management has been smart enough to avoid bureaucracy.

A simple example? I mentioned to my new boss (the CFO) that I could use a piece of software for the computer. He asked if I knew where to get it. I said, "sure, I can pick it up near here." He said, "so go get it, and we'll reimburse you." So I did.

Having been in an organization with all kinds of approval levels and such, that was refreshing, but then it got better! MIS came down to install the software (and they came down the same day--in fact, within minutes of my calling and saying, "hi, could you...?"). But the computer had trouble running the software.

So the guy from MIS took the computer upstairs and popped in more RAM. Still, it wasn't ideal. He was going to try another upgrade when I mentioned to the CFO how helpful they were being by doing this. At which point the CFO said, "Get a new computer. They can send yours to one of the branches where they don't need something with more power."

And that was that. He said this Thursday evening. Friday morning, MIS installed a new computer and put all of my stuff on it. The software works great, and I'm a happy camper.

I could get used to this! :)

(I just hope everything else in the job is this sensible.)