Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Well, that’s 3 days down. So far, it seems to be going well. The hardest part of the entire day is getting up, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. The commute could be better, but I at least get some time where I can wake up properly and that doesn’t involve talking to anyone. The only crap part of the entire situation is walking to and from northfields station. I discovered today that if I go in through the back entrance of the building, I can cut some time off my walk from London bridge station, which is nice. Also, I have my security pass now, so no stopping at the desk. Just in the doors, and up the lift.

I discovered while organising data for MP3 players yesterday what the real problem with employment is going to be. Before yesterday, I didn’t want an MP3 player, couldn’t afford one, and had no need for one. After a few 3 hours of dealing with them, I’ve somehow convinced myself it’d be really good for my working day if I owned one of them fancy iRivers with a digital radio in. This morning I did keyboards, and I found myself starting to wonder why I was still using a 101-key keyboard which didn’t have speakers and a media switchboard, and still had wires coming out of it, for god’s sake. On the other hand, I was totally unaffected by the graphics card category, so I might be partially immune.

Still, until I get paid, I can’t afford jack. Then I have some debts to settle, rent to pay, and only then can I start buying stuff. With that in mind, I took in the attachment for the phone Nikki gave me (which I almost threw away the other week, but thought better of it) that allows to phone to be an incredibly convincing FM radio. I get a decent range of frequencies, are there’s XFM, if nothing else. It’s a decent holdover until the cash starts rolling in and I can take my own albums to work. If I can stand listening to greenday, kasabian and muse every 3 songs. It’s like Virgin Radio, but with those bands in place of U2, Queen and RHCP. What I wouldn’t give for some Pixies, or Ben Folds Five, or christ, even the Manics.

My plan is to have half an hour at lunchtime and therefore work 9:30-5:30. People seem to be able to come in whenever they want, more or less. It’s unlikely I’d want to be in before 9, but I think if I want to, I can come in as early as 7, which would at least be useful to know in some situations.

Yesterday lunchtime, three people higher up on the chain than me (Ben, the guy I report to, Vince, the Tech guy for us, and Lyndan, the boss of all the tech team or something, I guess, since he has an office) took me out to a local all bar one for a “welcome to kelkoo” meal, which was pretty cool. I got to kind of mingle socially with the people I’ll be working for, so that was a nice opportunity to stop me feeling like I had no idea what was going on. The Burger I chose wasn’t great, but I enjoyed the chips, drink, fact I didn’t pay for it and the novelty of having hot food at lunch time when it wasn’t Sunday. It’s really been some years since I did that. Like, about 8. That took an hour, which meant I stayed at work until 6, but it really flies by anyway. I’ve done far worse jobs than this. We’ll have to see how I handle a full week of it. I’ll have to set up blogging by e-mail so I can do the odd inconspicuous update on what’s going down up in Kelkoo towers.

Well, anyway, that’s all I’m saying about work now. I’ll consider this the official Q&A post, so if you’ve got any burning questions that you have to ask, do it now, because I’m kind of getting concerned at the amount of times I’m repeating the same details to everyone. At least I only have to tell the internet one time. Which reminds me - I used to claim that in my spare time, I manned the internet. These days, when I’m at work, I write it. So there’s your answer. If anyone asks what I do, then tell them I write the internet.