Week One: Trial by Fire
My first week in Redmond was a little crazy.
Getting Here
That was kind of fun... Not. I somehow got sick the day of my flight, and it felt like I had the flu. I basically did everything in my power to sleep on the plane, and I felt extremely bad for anyone who had to sit next to me because I was sick. One woman I sat next to had a mouth mask for the occasion, probably for the best. Phlegm is no laughing matter. The time of day I flew was beautiful, and it might have been the one redeeming part of being sick on a flight.
As soon as I landed, I headed over to the baggage claim so I could "get home" to shower and sleep. At the baggage, I saw a man empty his pockets looking for his claim ticket, dump it on a chair, and completely ignore it until a janitor tried to throw it away. Then he threw a fit and basically had the look of annoyance and disgust on his face. I tried not to laugh at him, she was doing her job, and he wasn't really doing anything with the contents of his pockets otherwise.
I began heading over to the car rental building, which is one building with all the rental companies in it. The way that SeaTac organizes the rental cars is genius. Instead of taking a lot of space horizontally, they've opted to take it vertically. As a result, there's only one shuttle for all the companies. It eliminates the need for different shuttle services to pickup customers in the same spots, causing bottlenecks in the arrivals area. LAX, I'm looking at you. I mean, SeaTac has other problems, don't get me wrong... But this is a definite win.
I was given the wrong car when I first got here, and had to switch it out just when I was trying to exit. It's too bad, it was an Audi... And I had just spent 30 minutes looking at the driver's manual while waiting for my phone to charge. Anyway, I picked up my keys and got settled as best as I could.
Feeding Myself
I thought the Sunday before my first day of work it would be the perfect time to use Uber Eats and Amazon Now. With services like that, there's almost no need to leave the house. I was also in no shape to be driving around Redmond. What I didn't expect, however, was how badly I overestimated my ability to carry everything up the elevator.
Since I would be returning home the following weekend, buying a bunch of perishable foods was not the way to go. We don't have a Trader Joe's in Hawaii, so I was very unaware of the great microwaveable options for single serve dinners. Just an FYI, Trader Giotto's is a cute name for their Italian food. Hm... I kind of want the lasagna now.
My Temporary Digs
It's nice. Honestly, it's more space than I could need. I spent a lot of time milling around in my attempts to feel less feeble before my first day. Man, it's been a while since I've written a relatively alliterative sentence.
I generally spend my time off glued to one spot. Now there are several spots that I can sit in:
- The Nook: I brought my watercolors because I felt like it would be fun to have an art project to do myself for a bit. That's what lives on that table.
- The Couch: If I feel like watching TV for hours, this is where I live. I also sometimes work here leisurely.
- The Bedroom: I sleep there for extra hours on the weekends. It's amazing.
Having all this space is nice. At home, I generally do everything in my bedroom... It's nice to separate my activity spaces from my resting spaces.
Jumping Right In
In terms of work, I assisted a training session right away. And when I say assisted, it was more helping out my new manager with the logistics of the training. Nothing super crazy, just making sure that the food showed up on time, and was cleaned up on time. I clocked in a ton of overtime so I got to dig out early on Friday.
That was kind of fun. When you work hourly, you're more conscious of your time, in the sense that you're counting down. When it comes to salary, you have more flexibility. If you're definitely over, then you dig out. You get paid the same no matter what, which is a different mentality than what I'm used to. I think I'm lucky, because my company has policies and benefits that support a healthy work-life balance. I strongly believe everyone should make time to recharge; it keeps people motivated and their ideas fresh.
My office space.
It's also really humbling to be around people that are smarter than you. It's a good way to check your ego, and engage in opportunities to learn. You're conducting an ongoing internal dialogue where you can recognize what your strengths are and build upon them, while still creating a foundation for your weaknesses. You won't be amazing, but at least you can do the basics.
My host manager and I met on Friday to talk about my time here. She asked me what my goal was, and I told her to learn about where I can grow into. I didn't know what's available outside of retail, but I'm willing to learn and try.
She told me that it was brave to say that, and that it takes some maturity to recognize your own lack of knowledge. From there, we concocted our plan to expose me to as much as possible and learn from there.
I never liked too much structure anyway, so this worked for me. Growing is a part of any worthwhile journey, and it was time to get going!