First just a quick update to the house hunt post. I have uploaded pictures of a few of the places I looked at. You can view them on the picture site that I sent out earlier. Pictures 10-21 are of the house I picked. Now...on to work.The Good: The people at SHAPE are extremely friendly. I'm the first American on the team, so they're all interested in hearing about how things work in the US. Everyone speaks English well, but it can be very difficult to understand the accents. By boss is from Turkey, and believe it or not, his son is a fellow CS grad from Virginia Tech, class of '04! What a small world! My temporary mentor is a very nice guy from Hungary. My future mentor is from Slovania...I will meet him next week. We also have a Bulgarian, a German, and two Danish guys. It's a very intersting bunch. We take two official coffee breaks per day, plus a 1 hour 15 minute lunch. We play a high-low game based on the serial number of a Euro bill to see who will pay, and so far I've received quite a few free coffees. The building is a true military base and not very welcoming, but I feel important as my office is in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Command Europe. Sounds cool, doesn't it?
The Bad: Due to lost paperwork, I have to go to the security building each morning and wait in line for my temporary ID card. They said I should have one by the end of the week, but it's pretty annoying. Then, due to some issues with my clearance transfer, I can't get into the secure area where my office is without an escort. I can't even go to the bathroom without a Hungarian guy following me. Both issues should be corrected soon, so it's not too bad.
The Ugly: The job is not at all what I signed up for. Basically I will be documenting someone else's code, and improving the build process. As my fellow developers know, that's about as boring as it gets! I can't believe they shipped me all the way from the US to do this type of work.
To sum it all up, the location and people are great, the job is awful. I spoke to my boss today and he's going to try to get some development work for me, but he can't promise anything. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Posts
3 comments:
I'll trade you jobs. I have zero tasks at work, read that, ZERO! So I would gladly document code. In fact if you have extra code that needs documenting ship it my way and I'll do it for you! By the way I'm afraid of spiral staircases. They are all spiraly and don't mix well with high alcohol belgium beers.
So I can live here in Europe and have someone do my work for me? It's a deal! I appreciate you putting some perspective on it though.
I forgot about the Belgium beers and the spiral staircase. Good thing Europe has great healthcare!
I wouldn't worry too much about your first assignment. I'm sure it will turn out like most other jobs where people give you more responsibility as you prove yourself.
Besides, it could be worse. They could ask you to document it in French.
Post a Comment