I planned to write a post about the first week at the new job, but I was so exhausted I simply coud not make it. The new job started right after May Day holiday, and now it has almost been two weeks since I started.

The first impression was a bit dull and boring, since there was not really someone to look after me and I was left pretty much on my own. That might be because the person who should have done this was not at the office on first two days so nobody really felt they should do that. I was a bit unlucky because also the person who was meant to be my mentor was also taking long leave. Anyway, the first day I was shown a desk and handed over a laptop. They also said I was going to move after somebody whose stuff occupied my new desk was going to return to work. The laptop had some stickers on, and some passwords installed left behind at least from two previous workers. I opened the mailbox and felt like I opened somebody else's mail. There were over 300 unopened emails waiting.

There is not enough space and it would be boring to read all of the stuff that I was going through during the first week, so I just mention couple of the stuff I was struggling with on the first week.

I hit the start button of the laptop, it was all Chinese. Wow! Yes I can read Chinese, but I never used Chinese system. I was thinking I will be learning so much new stuff anyway, so let's not make it harder. Please change the language so I know what buttons I am pressing. That took days. After it was done, I got menus in English and the next thing was Microsoft Office programs. One day more. Next, all passwords were not working. Help! With the help of colleagues and IT department the passwords started working one by one. Oh! My email could only send to recipient within the company. One morning chatting with Chinese IT support with poor English and it was solved. By then, the system had turned the language back to Chinese, but I learned how to change it back to English.

Somewhere in between we were visiting customers outside the office and had training sessions at the meeting room on how to use all of the software in daily work. Well, usually I was trying to learn, but since my passwords were not working or IT guy was installing something on it, frankly, I didn't get so much out of it. Going outside the office was fun.

It got better, when the HR & Admin person came to work. I could have my fingerprint password at the office door, so I didn't need to wait for somebody inside to notice me behind the door. I got a company mobile phone with a generous data package. I could ask all the questions I had gathered while nobody else was not interested to hear (or was too busy to do so). I could even ask like what are my working hours and if there was a chance I could write under a working contract. Then my mentor and the person I was going to switch places came finally to work things started to move on. I was able to move to my own desk and could establish myself there. I could ask things from somebody who was willing to listen and teach me.

The funny part was, that the HR noticed that I had started to explore the closets by myself, because nobody had shown me around since I got there, she decided to give me a tour. She showed me around and even told where the toilets are! So lucky I found these already on the first day by myself!