Friday was my first day of work. I didn't actually get to do any real work yet; this was simply a new employee orientation day, where I sat in a classroom for most of the day and got talked at about the company and some common things that I need to do (like how to get in to buildings, etc). We got to go on a small tour of one of the facilities in the afternoon, and I got to eat lunch with my new boss--that was the first time I had met him.
This weekend was really nice! Ben came up from S. Maryland on Saturday evening and spent some time here--we watched some movies that evening, and then went to downtown early Saturday afternoon to look at the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the associated historical district. We also got to tour the original Congress Hall/Capitol Building (ProTip: Philadelphia was the Capital of the U.S. for the first ten years). It was a beautiful day out, so we took some time to just walk around downtown. Unfortunately, most of the historical places around there charge to get in, so we didn't get so see all the things (like Benjamin Franklin's burial place) that we wanted to. Later in the afternoon we came back to my apartment and grilled bratwurst and drank beer in the parking lot; yum!
Monday was my first "real" day of work, where I actually got to sit in my cubicle! I met all of my co-workers, they seem like they're going to be a lot of fun to work with. Most of my day, unfortunately, was pretty boring; I have to spend pretty much this entire week trying to get access to all the computer systems and tools I'll need to do my job, and doing mandatory training on Boeing's policies. The export controls ones (a.k.a. don't give stuff to non-U.S. people) are particularly boring, and of course are the longest.
Today, I worked more on computer systems and training, but also got a few small introductions to the actual work I'll be doing, which was a nice change of pace. I finally got to go over to the Chinook factory across the street and take a look at how they're built; the scale of the operation is simply incredible! Finished off the afternoon with more training and computer systems, but I should be done with that (for the time being...) by the end of tomorrow.
I'm pretty much moved in to my apartment now; there's still a few boxes of miscellaneous stuff that I need to unpack, and my empty TV box that I'm reluctant to throw away (it may join forces with a slab of wood to become a table), but everything else is more or less where it's going to stay for the next few months. It's nice to be able to sit down and relax after coming home from work, instead of always feeling like there's something I need to do.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Philadelphia Day 2
Yesterday:
- Moved in to new apartment. It's better than I expected in some ways, worse in others. It's a first-floor apartment, so that means it's actually half below ground and everyone in the parking lot can see directly in to my apartment. I do, however, have brand-new carpet and reasonably new appliances. Parking (which is a free-for-all) appears to be scarce during the evenings.
- Went to "Pre-Employment Processing" at work. In other words, did 1/2 hour of paperwork and proved I'm a U.S. Citizen, and got my photo taken for my ID badge. Hopefully it's better than my MN drivers' license. I made one new friend there; he worked for Boeing for a few years as an Engineer in L.A., but is now doing contract administration (business).
- Had dinner and a few beers with my Dad at Iron Hill Brewery, a nicer restaurant that brews their own beers (excellent!). It's been a long while since I've had such a long conversation between just the two of us.
Today:
- Went shopping for furniture, since I'm lacking dining room furniture, a coffee table, dresser, and a nightstand. I ended up purchasing a dresser and some dining room chairs at IKEA (found a decent dining table next to the apartment dumpster--claimed!)
- Got an early birthday present from Dad, a GPS for my car! The roads around here are really confusing, since none of them go north/south, not even the major ones. Most of the roads are based on the river, which runs to the south-west, and none of them are straight for very long. They also aren't named in any sequential pattern, so you really have to know the area to know where you're going. Also, the typical street sign is about 2" x 16" and brown, so finding and reading them is nearly impossible.
- With the aforementioned transactions, I triggered a fraud flag on my credit card. It seems buying $400 of gas in a drive across the country and then spending $500 more at stores is suspicious... who knew?
- Dropped Dad off at the airport, which represented the last of my many goodbyes. It was hard, and now I'm all depressed, but I have plenty of things to do to take my mind off things.
- Went "grocery" shopping, which consisted of stopping at the Wawa store on the way home from the airport. These things are everywhere; they're pretty much little convenience stores, except they don't sell gas. I only got bread and milk. I'll buy more food later when it's not rush hour.
Tomorrow is my first day at work!
- Moved in to new apartment. It's better than I expected in some ways, worse in others. It's a first-floor apartment, so that means it's actually half below ground and everyone in the parking lot can see directly in to my apartment. I do, however, have brand-new carpet and reasonably new appliances. Parking (which is a free-for-all) appears to be scarce during the evenings.
- Went to "Pre-Employment Processing" at work. In other words, did 1/2 hour of paperwork and proved I'm a U.S. Citizen, and got my photo taken for my ID badge. Hopefully it's better than my MN drivers' license. I made one new friend there; he worked for Boeing for a few years as an Engineer in L.A., but is now doing contract administration (business).
- Had dinner and a few beers with my Dad at Iron Hill Brewery, a nicer restaurant that brews their own beers (excellent!). It's been a long while since I've had such a long conversation between just the two of us.
Today:
- Went shopping for furniture, since I'm lacking dining room furniture, a coffee table, dresser, and a nightstand. I ended up purchasing a dresser and some dining room chairs at IKEA (found a decent dining table next to the apartment dumpster--claimed!)
- Got an early birthday present from Dad, a GPS for my car! The roads around here are really confusing, since none of them go north/south, not even the major ones. Most of the roads are based on the river, which runs to the south-west, and none of them are straight for very long. They also aren't named in any sequential pattern, so you really have to know the area to know where you're going. Also, the typical street sign is about 2" x 16" and brown, so finding and reading them is nearly impossible.
- With the aforementioned transactions, I triggered a fraud flag on my credit card. It seems buying $400 of gas in a drive across the country and then spending $500 more at stores is suspicious... who knew?
- Dropped Dad off at the airport, which represented the last of my many goodbyes. It was hard, and now I'm all depressed, but I have plenty of things to do to take my mind off things.
- Went "grocery" shopping, which consisted of stopping at the Wawa store on the way home from the airport. These things are everywhere; they're pretty much little convenience stores, except they don't sell gas. I only got bread and milk. I'll buy more food later when it's not rush hour.
Tomorrow is my first day at work!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
New Job!
After 12+ months of searching and applying, hundreds of rejected applications, and countless gut checks, I finally secured a full-time job with Boeing Rotorcraft Systems in Ridley Park, PA!
Right now, I'm not sure whether I'll be there for a year or a decade, or if this job is specifically something I want to do long-term, but at a minimum, it's a job in the aerospace defense industry. At this point, I don't have a specific job title that I want in 20 years, other than I know I want to design aircraft. Hopefully this experience will at least give me more insight in to where I want to fit in to the process.
I felt the largest obstacle I had to overcome in finding a job was the fact that I still have no actual (relevant?) industry experience--everything on my resume has "University of Minnesota" tacked next to it, and my current job is more or less completely separate from what I want to ultimately do, so getting this job is a huge step in the right direction for me.
Although I don't yet have an official start date, it will probably be about a month from now. Moving out to Ridley Park (a southern suburb of Philadelphia) is an exciting, new, and nerve-wracking experience for me; I've never lived outside of the Twin Cities, and never truly lived on my own--that's an entirely different post, though.
Yay!
Right now, I'm not sure whether I'll be there for a year or a decade, or if this job is specifically something I want to do long-term, but at a minimum, it's a job in the aerospace defense industry. At this point, I don't have a specific job title that I want in 20 years, other than I know I want to design aircraft. Hopefully this experience will at least give me more insight in to where I want to fit in to the process.
I felt the largest obstacle I had to overcome in finding a job was the fact that I still have no actual (relevant?) industry experience--everything on my resume has "University of Minnesota" tacked next to it, and my current job is more or less completely separate from what I want to ultimately do, so getting this job is a huge step in the right direction for me.
Although I don't yet have an official start date, it will probably be about a month from now. Moving out to Ridley Park (a southern suburb of Philadelphia) is an exciting, new, and nerve-wracking experience for me; I've never lived outside of the Twin Cities, and never truly lived on my own--that's an entirely different post, though.
Yay!
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Job Search
In a little under 3 months, I will be done with school and have to move off in to the real world. Which means, in the interim, I need to find a job, find a place to live, and basically re-set my life.
I've had a few interviews here and there, stemming from the two job fairs I've attended, but none of them have yielded any results (job offers, that is).
I know exactly two things about what I want to do for a living:
I'm starting to think, in my opinion, that I've never really worked "hard" for anything. Sure, I've been successful in school, been involved, won a few awards, done a few cool things, but maybe I never really was truly, really, challenged by any of these, and, maybe now that I'm required to really work at something, I'm failing miserably. To try to solve this, I'm now commiting myself to dedicate at least one hour of every day doing nothing but job searching: applying on-line, researching companies, searching for new ones.
Hopefully it'll all work out in the end.
I've had a few interviews here and there, stemming from the two job fairs I've attended, but none of them have yielded any results (job offers, that is).
I know exactly two things about what I want to do for a living:
- I want to design aircraft for a living. I've known this for 4 or 5 years now. It really doesn't matter what kind; there's just always been something fascinating about the beautiful complexity of an airplane
- I don't want to work for NASA. In the 1960's, I would. Maybe if we get in another "space race," I will. But not now. It would be cool, but I don't want to work on any project where Congress directly controls the budget.
I'm starting to think, in my opinion, that I've never really worked "hard" for anything. Sure, I've been successful in school, been involved, won a few awards, done a few cool things, but maybe I never really was truly, really, challenged by any of these, and, maybe now that I'm required to really work at something, I'm failing miserably. To try to solve this, I'm now commiting myself to dedicate at least one hour of every day doing nothing but job searching: applying on-line, researching companies, searching for new ones.
Hopefully it'll all work out in the end.
Monday, September 22, 2008
It's that time of year again...
...when I wonder if I'm taking on too much for the amount of time I have. On the docket this semester:
- School, including
- Senior Design: yet another design project, expected to take ~15 hours/week
- Aeromechanics Lab: A massive amount of data to sort through, several lab reports, etc.
- Thermodynamics: never really grasped this subject, been dreading taking this class for a couple years now
- Marching Band: winding down my last year, getting ready to be done but still enjoying it immensely.
- Work: getting in some hours in the morning, but not much
- Social life: living with the people I've hung out with for the last three years takes time! Plus, GF living 30 minutes away doesn't help
- Solar Car: somehow became Project Manager, feeling like I'm not doing enough in that role right now
- Job Search, aka "the new one:" still getting used to the whole "I'm going to have a career next year" thing. Slowly working on my resume, but this is going to have to ramp up quickly in order to get done. The rest of my life starts now.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Wait, what?
I'm unusually motivated today, for no particular reason. So this is what that feels like...
Monday, July 2, 2007
Busy Busy Busy
Wow, I have been busy. The last two months just flew by; classes and the school year went way too fast, and a standard office job makes the time go even faster.
In response to my last post, I have decided not to persue a Mechanical Engineering major. A few days after the previous post, it was revealed to me that there exists a wonderful thing called the Professional Engineer exam. Passing this exam officially certifies you as a Mechanical engineer, which basically serves as a degree, for about 1% of the price, a bit of extra studying, and a lot less hassle than taking an extra year or so of classes.
The last week of school, I ended up with two job offers: one with the physics department managing their 1,000 classroom demos part-time, and the other a student engineering assistant job with U of M energy management. I chose to take the energy management position, which means I'm working 40 hours a week on campus. I decided to live at home this summer, mostly because it's cheaper. As a result, I take the bus/train to campus every day, which works out pretty well.
Since it's summer, solar car has increasingly taken up more time. 2 or 3 meetings per week after work take up the remainder of most my days; as a result, I'm often not home for enough time to get a full night's sleep. But: it's worth it, because after two years of being on the project with little to show for it, we are finally starting to build stuff! Design work is happening faster and faster, which leaves everyone with a sense of accomplishment. By the end of the summer, we should have something that roughly resembles a solar powered vehicle.
Marching Band next year is going to be awesome! I managed to get myself on to leadership (which feels weird), but the season looks to be shaping up well: John Williams' "Summon the Heroes" is on the docket, one of the best individual pieces written by him. Less than 50 days 'til Spat Camp, I can't wait! Diem says we're expecting a smaller-than-normal rookie class, apparently due to the 'U' admitting more academically qualified applicants as opposed to well-rounded students who are more inclined to do marching band. It's all part of our plan to become one of the top three research universities, I call shennanigans.
The new stadium is coming along, University Ave. is all torn up in order to move the roads around. I occassionally go down to engineering records (which is in the same building I work in) to look at the new plans, it's good fun. When I express how excited I am about it, many people complain about how much money the University is spending on the stadium. I am then forced to explain to them two realities: one, my Marching Band is getting a new home, and two, whether they like it or not, athletics, especially the football team, is the face of the University that a vast majority of the public sees. Building the stadium will have great first and second order effects all around campus.
I plan to do quite a bit of weekend traveling next year, mostly involving hockey: I want to go to games at North Dakota, Michigan/Michigan State, Mankato, St. Cloud, and UMD. Just over 100 days until the puck drops! Still no word whether Goligoski is coming back (it was supposed to be announced yesterday, grrr...), I'm still crossing my fingers and trying not to hope too hard.
I'm getting old. I just had my 20th birthday 2 weeks ago (was it really that long ago), and two of my friends got married over the last month, one of whom I graduated with. Scary.
I have recently come to a startling realization, and explanation as to why I am so tired all the time: I do not spend enough time at home to get a good night's sleep during the week. Between a full-time job, solar car, a social life (mostly on campus), and commuting between them, it's often less than 8 hours between when I get home and when I have to get up in the morning to go to work. How this will affect me come fall (with the addition of Marching Band and classes, but a reduction in work hours) is yet to be seen, but the results should be interesting. I keep telling myself that I can handle as much as I want to throw at myself, but this summer is making me seriously reconsider how much I am putting on my plate. I love all of the stuff I do so much, I don't know what I am willing to let go if it comes to that.
In response to my last post, I have decided not to persue a Mechanical Engineering major. A few days after the previous post, it was revealed to me that there exists a wonderful thing called the Professional Engineer exam. Passing this exam officially certifies you as a Mechanical engineer, which basically serves as a degree, for about 1% of the price, a bit of extra studying, and a lot less hassle than taking an extra year or so of classes.
The last week of school, I ended up with two job offers: one with the physics department managing their 1,000 classroom demos part-time, and the other a student engineering assistant job with U of M energy management. I chose to take the energy management position, which means I'm working 40 hours a week on campus. I decided to live at home this summer, mostly because it's cheaper. As a result, I take the bus/train to campus every day, which works out pretty well.
Since it's summer, solar car has increasingly taken up more time. 2 or 3 meetings per week after work take up the remainder of most my days; as a result, I'm often not home for enough time to get a full night's sleep. But: it's worth it, because after two years of being on the project with little to show for it, we are finally starting to build stuff! Design work is happening faster and faster, which leaves everyone with a sense of accomplishment. By the end of the summer, we should have something that roughly resembles a solar powered vehicle.
Marching Band next year is going to be awesome! I managed to get myself on to leadership (which feels weird), but the season looks to be shaping up well: John Williams' "Summon the Heroes" is on the docket, one of the best individual pieces written by him. Less than 50 days 'til Spat Camp, I can't wait! Diem says we're expecting a smaller-than-normal rookie class, apparently due to the 'U' admitting more academically qualified applicants as opposed to well-rounded students who are more inclined to do marching band. It's all part of our plan to become one of the top three research universities, I call shennanigans.
The new stadium is coming along, University Ave. is all torn up in order to move the roads around. I occassionally go down to engineering records (which is in the same building I work in) to look at the new plans, it's good fun. When I express how excited I am about it, many people complain about how much money the University is spending on the stadium. I am then forced to explain to them two realities: one, my Marching Band is getting a new home, and two, whether they like it or not, athletics, especially the football team, is the face of the University that a vast majority of the public sees. Building the stadium will have great first and second order effects all around campus.
I plan to do quite a bit of weekend traveling next year, mostly involving hockey: I want to go to games at North Dakota, Michigan/Michigan State, Mankato, St. Cloud, and UMD. Just over 100 days until the puck drops! Still no word whether Goligoski is coming back (it was supposed to be announced yesterday, grrr...), I'm still crossing my fingers and trying not to hope too hard.
I'm getting old. I just had my 20th birthday 2 weeks ago (was it really that long ago), and two of my friends got married over the last month, one of whom I graduated with. Scary.
I have recently come to a startling realization, and explanation as to why I am so tired all the time: I do not spend enough time at home to get a good night's sleep during the week. Between a full-time job, solar car, a social life (mostly on campus), and commuting between them, it's often less than 8 hours between when I get home and when I have to get up in the morning to go to work. How this will affect me come fall (with the addition of Marching Band and classes, but a reduction in work hours) is yet to be seen, but the results should be interesting. I keep telling myself that I can handle as much as I want to throw at myself, but this summer is making me seriously reconsider how much I am putting on my plate. I love all of the stuff I do so much, I don't know what I am willing to let go if it comes to that.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Sam Jackson is Amazing
this made me really happy. I can't wait for August 18th.
Work is good. Most of the time, it's really boring and I get a lot of reading done. I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time (sad, I know) in a week reading almost exclusively at work. Other times, its kind of (but not really) interesting, like when a guy got T-boned by a garbage truck down the street, or when the power went out and our scanners wouldn't work. But mostly, I have money again. sort of. I can't wait to get back to school.
Monday, June 19, 2006
w00t, Job!
My long hours of boredom are over! I got a job with Advance Private Investigators. No, I will not be a P.I. with crazy dames walking in to my office. Instead, I will be working luberyard security at Menards, operating a gate and making sure people don't steal wood. I will be splitting time between the Eden Prairie and Burnsville locations. 30-40 hours a week at $11.50/hr = lots of money and no more boredom! I will finally be able to drive to campus to do solar car without having to worry about whether I will have enough money to make it through the summer. Happy.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
A Tale of Three Cities
I have a major problem with three cities right now: Bloomington, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. The problem is that I live in one (Bloomington), but need to regularly (but not regularly enough to justify a bus pass) get to one of the other two (Minneapolis and St. Paul). They are far enough apart that it takes a quarter tank of gas to get there and back home (as I found out today), but too close to justify staying overnight somewhere. I will be spending a good portion of my time in the next week there (at least 4 round-trips) for solar car, and with gas at $40 per tank, I do not have the money to travel that much (nor a job to bring me more money). Long story short: I (or rather my wallet) can't wait until I live on campus again.
In other news, the solar car is traveling to Taiwan in September for a rayce, thus all of my trips to Minneapolis and St. Paul for meetings and testing and the like. I will not be going on the trip myself (mostly because I can't stand the thought of missing band), but I do get to decide who goes... bwahahaha! The next 4 weeks should be interesting though, we have to get the car all ready to go and packed in a shipping crate, something that usually takes months to do.
Also, I still don't have a job. I desperately need one to keep me from sitting around the house all day if nothing else.
Less than 3 months until Spat Camp... yay!
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