The first week

I haven’t had much time this week to write because I’ve been on boarding at my new job. The first day and a half was like drinking from a firehose, then it slowed down a bit and got a little easier.

To tell the truth, I’m not used to getting up everyday and working eight hours; it’s been a little tough. The last couple of months in the Navy, I was just going in when I was on watch for laser operations; otherwise, I was teleworking. The last two weeks, I came off the watch bill and I only did check out stuff.

My first day, I found out that I’m going to be the new lead for the team. The old lead quit, but was then offered a position within the company as an on-call advisor. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I suppose I’ll figure it out as I go along.

The team that I’m leading is four other people, three former sailors and one who never served. They seem like a great bunch of people and I already feel like I fit in well. We eat lunch together everyday, one day someone made breakfast burritos and another day someone brought doughnuts. They have been together for some time and have an interesting dynamic. It’s probably a good thing HR is so far away. 😆

The farther we are from HR, the safer we’ll be. 😂

I’ve tried to get in touch with my supervisor a couple of times this week, and he wrote back, but it seems like our office is easily forgotten since we’re on the east coast. My supervisor called me at 6pm one day, he just have forgotten about the time difference.

We have a trip to the west coast coming up in a few weeks. I guess I’ll get to meet everyone I’m at HQ when we go out there. It’s nice to have a job where some limited travel happens on occasion.

I like being able to dress like an adult and picking out what I’m going to wear each day. I’m glad I started buying nice clothes a couple months ago for my new job; I have enough to wear for a few days without having to recycle anything. I’ll probably need another suit and maybe some warmer clothes as we move into autumn.

I got a few project moving that have been stagnant for far too long. I sanded and primed my Darth Vader bust. I made a name plate and the wood block for my desk name plate. I made the plaque for my office door, but I will have to redo part of it when the laser is free. I’m working on a few pens for the shop and I’m making a friend a cutting board with laser engraving. I also managed to clean the workshop up, get my shadow box and battle axes hung up on the walls at home, and I’ll likely spend more time in the shop this week after work than I did last week.

All the little projects I’ve been working on this weekend. Starting at top left and going too to bottoms, left to right: Dahmer cutting board, office door plaque, I’ll have to redo because I used a low-res file and it turned out poorly, name plate for desk, pen blanks cut and centered, Vader bust primed and ready for paint, shadow bow on wall, battle axes on wall.

There’s just not enough time to do everything I want to do during the day. I have so many interests and hobbies, but not enough time to devote to each of them. I was double dipping earlier today by sanding Darth and watching a movie with Adrianne. 😝 This past week I just chilled on the couch after work. Maybe this coming week, I’ll be a bit more motivated to get things done. One little thing at a time anyway.

Tomorrow, I’m going to get my contractor CAC, turn in my old navy laptop, pick up my coins and cases from storage, hang them in my office, and see what else needs doing around the shop. Hopefully, things will stay nice and calm like they were the latter half of last week until I get my arms around the new stuff.

As always. Enjoy your burritos folks, more to come soon. Cheers!