My First 2 Weeks

Well, it doesn't feel like it, but I have officially finished a fortnight (nerd haha) at the job and I have some thoughts to put down. I've mostly just been following people around, observing what they do and stuff. Of course, since I'm not yet cleared for "Secret" status, there are some things they can't show me. Kind of sucks, they say getting cleared could take months or even over a year. Oh well.

Now that I'm in the so-called corporate world, there are some things that are supposed to happen. For example, I am supposed to start reading Dilbert comic strips and think it is the most hilarious thing ever. Hasn't happened yet though.

Or, I should watch Office Space again and appreciate it 10 times more than before. I haven't done that either, but I can see where maybe I would think some parts are funnier. It was a funny movie anyways. Oh, I do hear TPS being mentioned all the time, but I don't think it's a form that requires a memo explaining the need for a cover sheet. There's also a guy that looks like Milton too, except his glasses aren't huge and he isn't as messy.

One thing I vow never to do is to become a caffeine freak. I made it through college and I plan to make it through life without becoming dependent on coffee just to make it through my day. It's kind of the same reason I don't take Tylenol or Advil. That, plus it gives me headaches and even taking a sip of Coke at lunch will keep me up past 4 am. It's weird, I have a pretty big tolerance for beer but I am afraid to touch tea or Mountain Screw.

I don't know if it's just Northrop or Military convention, but there are acronyms for everything. Seriously, I can't understand like 80% of what the people are talking about at the meetings because it is like they are speaking a foreign language made of fancy letters. That, or they are just trying to be ghetto like Snoop Dogg raps: "with so much drama in the N-o-G, it's kinda hard bein Chen, J-O-single-E..."

Of course, I can't just go off spouting acronyms without knowing the convention, especially how to pronounce it. A DWG is called a "dwig" but you can't call a TPS "tips." Otherwise, you will be laughed out of town. Kind of like if you call the Korean boy band H.O.T. "hot."

For almost anything they do in this place, no matter how simple or mundane it is, they have come up with a professional-sounding term for it. Remember in the old Nintendo systems, when you turned it on and it didn't work, what did you do? That's right, take out the cartridge, shake it, blow on it, hammer it on your knee, then put it back in and it would work. Well, you can pretty much do the same thing when a memory module doesn't register on a card. You take it out of the socket and put it back in. They call it a "module re-seat." No, we don't blow on it, but if we did, they might use the term "oral aeration" or something. Or, say you want to change a light bulb. You would definitely switch off the power before unscrewing the old one and putting the new one in, because it's not good to do that with the power on, right? Well, same goes with putting in a $40,000 card with lots of circuitry, you make sure you shut down the power before sticking it in. Otherwise, you may have "hot-swapped," a dangerous and often costly mistake. Remember not to hot-swap the next time you have to change a light bulb.

I think I might know how it feels to be a rookie in the NFL at his first preseeason training camp. You come in having some preparation from college, but there's all this stuff to learn. You gotta pick up on the offensive or defensive system, remember the plays, and almost everyone around you is a lot bigger than what you are used to.

The cool thing about having a job (besides getting paid) is that once you work your hours and go home, you're done. You can watch sports all night or sit around doing nothing (done and done) without having to feel like "dang, I should be studying" or "dang, I should be looking for a job." Especially before I am married and have kids, all I really gotta worry about is going to sleep early and waking up on time.

That's about it at the 14-day mark... I'm sure more thoughts and observations will come in the future.