I have just finished my first week at my new job, and as first weeks go it was pretty good. It is always wierd to start a new job, since your productivity typically goes to zilch for at least a few days. First there’s all the paperwork you have to fill out, meeting anyone you don’t know yet, take a tour, and set up your desk before you really start training. Since I’ve been through this spiel a few times now my first day was rather boring, made slightly worse by the fact that my boss was getting ready to go on a two and a half week vacation to Switzerland and France (so everyone in the office was hurrying to finish projects he needed before he left). But my work picked up through the week and I doubt that I’ll have another boring day for a long while, between the projects I picked up at our staff meeting and helping with the end of quarter reporting I feel pretty sure the rest of my training will be hands on (as opposed to online training videos on our software like I went through on days 1 and 2).
This week got me thinking about my first week at other jobs, and I’ve had a couple of interesting ones. For instance, when I started to work for PlainsCapital Bank to pay for my graduate degree I spent my first two weeks working down the hall from the main vault. I could walk 10 yards and be in the presence of several million dollars. Then there was the time I started working as a grad assistant for Tech in the Institutional Advancement office, where my supervisor was also in my grad program. Our boss, who was the aunt of another girl in our program, called me into her office to chat on my first week, and proceeded to tell me what a waste getting a CFP was and how no one trusts anyone but CPAs with their money. (It was sweet vindication to later learn she’d taken the CPA exam several times and never passed).
Last but not least, when I started my first real job, at Kay-Bee Toystore it was the week of Black Friday (Thanksgiving week, also called Green Friday by those who profit from the buying frenzy, but anyone who’s worked retail on this day will agree it’s really Black Friday). This meant my second day on the job happened to be the absolute busiest in all the time that I worked there, with a line stretching along the back wall of the store, all the way out into the hallway of the mall. People would just automatically get in line, then we’d pick stuff out for them. We even had to have our store manager standing in front of the register to make sure no one cut. It turned out not to be too bad since the line wasn’t moving too fast you had plenty of time to find what they wanted, and with the people who had to clean up pulling stuff off the aisles it wasn’t nearly as messy as it could have been.
How about you? Any interesting first week experiences? Post them below.
