I’ve been in Perth the past two days, getting acquainted with the new company I’m about to start a three month part-time contract with. They are a BIG global company, and the project I’m working on is MASSIVE (many billions of dollars). So lots of new things to learn. The actual work should be relatively simple, but, as always, learning the corporate acronyms, getting some understanding of the corporate culture, the document management system, the file structure, the smart card login system, the people who make things happen, the business processes, etc. takes time. However, it’s an exciting project to be part of—even if it’s in just a small way.
While I’ve been here, the large company has put me up in one of Perth’s 5-star international ‘brand name’ hotels and I ended up in a massively huge King Suite (yes, I know that’s not all grammatically correct, but this suite is damned big… nearly as big as a small house!). They’ve set a precedent now!
Dining/study area of King Suite - this is part of what I saw when I first walked in
Living area of King Suite - this is what I saw when I turned to the right
Bedroom of King Suite - only part of this separate room...
While I’ve been here, I’ve had the pleasure of catching up with some old friends. I had dinner last night with Clare who was the person who referred me to the powers that be in the BIG company, and we caught up on a lot of news. She also gave me a rundown on some of the high-level background stuff about the company and the project, which was great. Tonight I had dinner with Claudia, with whom I go back an awfully long way—we were at Teachers’ College together doing the Library Studies course. I think I was 17 when we first met. Such a long time ago. It was wonderful catching up with them both.
And tomorrow morning I’m having breakfast with Gail, with whom I worked for some four or five years at the first software company we both ever worked for. Then it’s off to the Perth office of the Brisbane company to pick up their new software release, learn about the new stuff, and to catch up lunch with two workmates from there over lunch. It sounds like I’ve been on an eating feast! But seriously, I’ve been working hard and learning lots. I just can’t talk about most of it.
It’s sorta been nice being back in an office again, especially one with such fantastic views over the city and river, but I’ll be glad to be heading back to my home office tomorrow. I really couldn’t work in a cube farm ever again, and having worked with those views before, I can tell you that you learn to ignore them fairly quickly. Give me the birds and the trees any day.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 