The first week of a new gig is a lot of hurry up and wait.

First of all, there’s the hurry-up-and-wait of setting up new computers.  I have two: a MacBook Pro and a Dell running Windows Server 2008, both of which needed software to get going.  I installed Office:Mac 2011 on my MBP, and I have to tell you that it was a weird feeling to be using the official 14.0.0 build instead of a daily build or a private build from one of the developers.  I haven’t run Windows Server in ages, so there was a lot of installation necessary so that it would run the apps that I want (such as OneNote (hi Dan!)).

Second, there’s the hurry-up-and-wait for access to everything.  There’s systems, networks, and mailing lists.  There’s benefits, business cards, and the gym.  There’s even little electric cars available to drive around campus, which requires a driving test from one of the receptionists.  Plus I’ve learnt that there’s a beer bash every Friday, so at least a little bit of Friday was spent waiting for that to start!

There’s also a lot of hurry-up-and-wait to try to figure out who is who on my team.  Before I started here, I had plenty of contact with my new manager.  There’s her manager, and another manager at the same level as she is.  There’s the other user researchers.  There’s the team of interaction designers (have I mentioned that we have some openings available for interaction designers? search our jobs site for “interaction designer” and ping me if you’re interested … ), all of whom have different projects that I need to learn about.

This week is about settling in some more.  I think I’ve got my computers set up with everything I need to work, although I’m sure that I’ll stumble across more things that I need as I go along.  I’m starting to meet with teams.  I’ve got lunches scheduled with various people across the company, some of whom have worked at MacBU in the past.  I might even get some real work done.

Of course, this spurt of potential productivity happens just when VMware is going to be shut down for the week of Thanksgiving.  I’ve timed this pretty well: I work for two weeks, then take a week off (wherein I’ll visit Michigan to see my family for the holiday).  Then I work for another two weeks, and then take about four weeks off (wherein I’ll visit Sydney to see my husband’s family).  And then it will be the New Year, and time to really get down to it.