Week one is just about over

So, the first week at the new job… the term ‘whirlwind’ comes to mind.

I’m picking up the physical layout pretty well — where all the labs are, where all the computers and printers are within those labs, where the buildings and staircases and elevators are, etc. The network infrastructure is a little more complex, but I think I’m picking it up rather nicely (much better than the root/admin passwords, which are intentionally difficult to remember).

Have the keys to the internal wiki. It only has 14 existing pages in the main namespace, but I’ll be changing that once I update the MediaWiki backend, which I’ll be doing once I update the other LAMP components, which I’ll be doing once I can determine what else uses those processes on that server, which I’ll be doing once I learn a bunch of other internal structural things, which I’ll be doing when things are quiet.

I’ve also been thrown into finding, installing, and maintaining a trouble-ticket system. There’s no formal budget for this, so we’re going open-source, and as much as it has given me several headaches elsewhere I think OTRS is probably the most flexible option we’ve yet examined.

I’ve walked a LOT in the past week. Made the mistake of wearing some nice-looking but not-entirely-comfortable shoes on Friday, and by the end of the day I was paying for it. (Note to self: get more walking-type shoes.) Most labs are in this building, so F2F visits are the standard operating procedure, but because it can sometimes be difficult to track down the right person I may have to swing by several times.

So far the people I work with seem to be uniformly pleasant and easy-going in their social interactions, and they readily adapt to changes in infrastructure, policy, etc. unlike most users at the previous job. Like all good scientists, though, they’re very driven in a professional sense, and I get the feeling that the social pleasantness may erode if something consistently interferes with their research operations.

That said: there are a few undergrads around, and they are so clueless about things that it’s just adorable. “Why, yes, we do log traffic. Is there some reason you ask?” “Oh, uh, no, not at, uh, all. ”

My boss and I are getting along very well so far. Part of this may be our common affinity for open-source projects in general or for both Gentoo and MediaWiki in particular. The danger, of course, is that I’ll start involuntarily adapting to his strong French accent. I’m already thinking about how many “geegs” are available on a particular hard drive, and if I’m not careful it’s going to get much worse.

Finally for now: the former employer has posted both of my replacement positions, even though the consensus had been “let’s wait until the new fiscal year to hire the second one”. Apparently that first week was rougher than a particular officer had anticipated…