Interruption: Off and Running at Work

I know you're all waiting to hear about the rest of the trip and see more pictures. I hope I'll get there soon (maybe even at least part way there today!). In the meantime, though, I thought I'd give you an update on my new job.

I started work a week and a half ago at Ethos Technologies. The people I work with are awesome! In eight days at work, I have yet to be left on my own for lunch or even to be allowed to pay for my own lunch (until I finally insisted on picking up the tab late in the week). Lunch is usually ordered in from one of the many nearby Chinese take-out places (which certainly beat American Chinese take-out!). Although I haven't really done it myself yet, as far as I can tell, those of us that can't read Chinese menus or place food orders in Chinese have only to go to one of our friendly Chinese colleagues who will obligingly order for us (and even select for us if we're flexible about what we eat). We eat together in a cozy lunch room - generally family style.

Team lunches, dinners and other social activities seem to be frequent and there are weekend basketball, football (that's soccer to you Americans ;)) and badminton clubs. Ben and I joined a number of my colleagues for badminton yesterday. I hadn't played since high school, but it came back to me pretty quickly and my colleagues were patient and friendly about my gaffes. In addition to sports, there are English clubs for the Chinese students to practice their English (I think we need a Chinese club for us non-Chinese to practice our Chinese, too - maybe I'll get that started). I also think I'll look into founding some other non-sports options. I've got lots of people in my group who are looking for ways to practice their English, so I think maybe an English-language book club would be fun. The trick will be to find books that are fun and accessible for everyone. I also really enjoyed Toastmasters when I belonged at Seagate. It would be a great forum to help people with their spoken English. When I get back from my next trip I'll see if there's sufficient interest and do some research on how to found a new chapter. Another great thing about the people at work is their diversity. The non-Chinese come from all over, but truly, so do the Chinese. Nearly every province in China is represented. Since food is one of my personal passions (I know you haven't seen a lot about food yet, but count on it...so long as I can manage to keep up you'll probably be treated to more than you ever wanted to know!) I'd love to see if I can drum up interest in a food club...the idea, I think, would be that for each meeting we'd select a different cuisine (ideally led each time by a member for whom that cuisine is native) and eat together at a restaurant specializing in that cuisine. I think it would be a great way to get to know each other and to get a taste of different parts of China and the world all without leaving Beijing. Contrary to everything I'd heard, Beijing does not seem to lack for restaurants serving food from around the world.

So...that's for the social fabric of work. It's not all fun and games though (well...actually, so far it is all fun, but definitely not all games). I have 35 people reporting to me at the moment (with 6 new people joining my group tomorrow, more at the end of July and still more at the end of August). The group structure is brand new to Ethos so everyone is still learning/figuring out how the new organization will work. I am not only struggling to get to know everyone in my group (it's hard to get to know 35 people practically overnight...especially, I confess, when they have names that are totally unfamiliar, which I can't even pronounce, and sometimes can't distinguish given name from surname), but trying to grasp the projects we are responsible for, pick up enough about the technology (which is brand new to me) to make sense of them, and find out what's in the pipeline so I have work for all those new people to do, not to mention learning a whole set of new IT systems, corporate policies, etc. At any rate, it's hard work, but fun. I love a new challenge and this is certainly that. The names, systems, policies, etc. will sort themselves out over time (hopefully less time rather than more!)...most important, I like the people I work with and know that every day will bring new friends, new learning and fun. After two years back in school, it's an adjustment getting up every morning to get to the office, but for the first time in a long time, I'm enjoying myself enough that it's also hard to tear myself away at the end of the day to go home. That's the way work should be.