Workin' 9 to 5

We’re in our office these days, and I’ve got a brand-new desk to sit at, a brand-new chair to sit in, and lots of work to do in the next three days. I can, however, do stuff over this weekend – that’s fine. To be honest, I’ve had several very light days, so working the weekend now wouldn’t bother me too much. The PM had suggested all of us go to this little island and spend the weekend at the beach, or go up to the mountains, which would be really fun. However, the beach place he had in mind is full, and as much as I’d love to spend a weekend checking out other places and other parts of the country, I think I could stand to put in some more hours here. Besides, if I do a good job now, I am more likely to be asked to continue on the project, which will allow more time for checking out other parts of the country eventually. My company also does quite a bit of work in Vietnam, so this isn’t likely to be my only chance to be here for as long as I have this job.

There is a guy who is helping us set up everything for the office, which is really helpful as neither the PM nor I speak Vietnamese. However, listening to the PM trying to explain to this guy what he wants is hilarious. Part of it is because he has this very thick German accent that’s almost like a stereotype, and the logistics guy has an extremely thick Vietnamese accent as well, and English is the only language they have in common. The PM sounds kind of like the voice of the caterpillar in “A Bug’s Life”, if you’ve ever seen the movie. If he ever busts out with “I am a bee-yoo-tee-ful butterfly!” I will never stop laughing. Fortunately, I think that’s unlikely. At least, I sincerely hope that’s unlikely. He usually says things more along the line of “vhot iss diss rrrubbish?” In any event, to hear the conversation moving in fits and starts between him and the beleaguered logistics guy who has a decent, yet limited, grasp of English, is quite the treat. I, of course, have to pretend that I hear nothing, in order to continue with my work and prevent an attack of the giggles.

Since all of our furniture and such things are brand new, they have that “new plastic” smell, which can also be referred to as “toxic”. We’ve given it a few days with the veranda doors thrown open and the fans on high, so that helps considerably. I decided to undertake the task of unwrapping my office chair this morning. This should not have been difficult. However, the chair was wrapped in three layers of plastic that had all been attached before the final assembly – I don’t know if this is the way it’s done everywhere, but I now have developed a deep-seated dislike for this practice. It took me a good 30 minutes, if not more, to unwrap the chair. This thing was wrapped to survive nuclear holocaust. I tore through the first layer easily enough, only to find that there was more to peel through. It was like those little Russian dolls, where each doll opens up to reveal a slightly smaller one inside. Every piece of plastic seemed determined to stick where it was, demonstrating both remarkable elasticity and tensile strength, and I began to mutter under my breath – it was all PG-rated, but this is generally the beginning of the end for me losing my temper over something stupid. Fortunately, the PM handed me a blade so I could hack through the last few layers of plastic sticking around screws, the arms, and other seams. This is one of those areas where my anal-retentive tendencies tend to work against me, I was determined that I was going to unwrap that freaking chair. I probably should have just let it go. And yet…I didn’t. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. What…no one? That’s what I thought.

I’m writing up some research methodology today, so that I can have some concrete things I will have contributed by the time I leave here. I have no idea whether or not the PM still thinks I’m incompetent. I hope not, but one never knows – we haven’t produced much of anything yet. He thinks I’m a nice person, which is swell, but I’ll be curious to hear his professional opinion of my work on this project. That’s the thing about my company – in my experience, feedback is rare unless someone thinks you’re a waste of skin. In those cases, you get more feedback than you can shake a stick at. But hearing when you’ve done a good job? That’s rare. My boss tries to be good about that, which I appreciate, but it’s not that I need someone to tell me I’m fabulous all the time, I would just like to know if there are things I could be doing better, or things that I should keep doing, because I’ve already got the right idea.

I just tried to get back into Blogger, and was unsuccessful – now I’m downloading virus updates from Symantec. Downloading an 11 MB file on a dial-up is interesting. Only 35 minutes left to go – yee haw! Like lightning, I tell you. I do, however, hope that it helps. I type in a complete web address and the search engine or whatever starts looking for the address with all different kinds of suffixes, like “blogger.com.com”, “blogger.com.net”, and “blogger.com.org”. It’s so strange.

We just installed our water cooler in the office – essential equipment to a smoothly functioning office. It’s funny to read the instructions and “Attention!” section. It says that the machine must be connected with an “earthed” socket, by which I can only assume they mean “grounded”. But my favorite is precaution #7:

You’d better clean this machine when using for the first time or reusing after a long time.

Is it just me, or does it almost sound like a threat? As though Bobby the Fish or Vinnie the Hammer is going to come and break your kneecaps if you don’t properly clean your water cooler. I almost expected to see “hey – we know guys who know guys” or “we’d hate for your water cooler to meet with an accident” at the end of that one. I swear, I can amuse myself for hours at a time with this stuff, kids. I realize that my sense of humor can sometimes be a bit of a head-scratcher, though.

I am noticing a very serious problem with my formerly hermetically sealed office chair. It’s hard as a rock and my rear end is completely falling asleep. It looks as though it would have some cushioning, but I can tell you that’s a complete lie. An illusion. Yeeowch. If I come back here, I’m going to have to think of something to do about this. Assuming that I wind up at the same desk, with the same chair, I suppose. Another odd thing about these chairs – they all tilt to the right. Every single one of them. This can’t be good for the human body, and it’s just odd that it’s all of them that are like that. The PM warned me about it, so perhaps this is something that’s just common to Vietnamese-made office chairs? Of course, there’s no logical reason for such a thing, but “logic” and “reason” don’t necessarily need to factor into things.

It’s getting to be about 6 pm, but I don’t want to be the one to suggest going home. I have actually been doing work and I’ve gotten some things written (besides this), and I’ve read some things I needed to read. But I’m ready to call it quits, to be honest. I’m more productive in evening hours, though, so maybe I should try to marshal some of that productivity and burn through this methodology section.

I’ll let you know how that goes.