First Day in the Office.

01 February 2011

To sum up my first day at work (and 4^th day in Vienna), I have compiled the list below:

·         The walk to work was great!  It is a little under a mile down a main road with lots of interesting shop windows in which to look.  Last night, I met my new boss at a café to get acquainted and she told me I didn’t need to be at the office until 10am today.  It made for a great start!

·         My co-workers and my boss are all very welcoming and helpful - and just generally pleasent.  They have good systems in place for everything (which was seriously lacking at the US office).  They even seem to have a system for their cigarette smoking breaks.  Everyone smokes cigarettes in Vienna.  Bad.  Bad habit.  I actually saw two cigarette vending machines today within 3 feet of each other.  Bad. Bad habit.

·         At work, I sit near Nina who also did not speak German when she arrived.  She is from Finland, lived in NYC for 8 years and now is in Vienna.  She has already extended the offer of friendship and invited me to join her for aerobics on Sunday (she remembers how hard it was to make friends when she got to town and is being extra nice – yay for Nina!)

·         I got a visit today from Thomas, the COO, who explained the best way for me to learn German is to get an Austrian boyfriend.  Oh…Thomas.  Thomas, Thomas, Thomas….He also explained it is likely they will really want me to stay on after I complete my 6-month commitment.  We’ll see…

·         My whole department eats lunch together every day.  We either go to the T-mobile center or order in…either way, it’s good company. 

·         At about 5:45pm, my boss walked over to me and said, "please promise me you will not stay much longer tonight."  She explained nothing was urgent enough to stay late.  I like it when my boss tells me to work less J

·         On my way home from work, I was confident I knew exactly how to get back to my apartment…only to discover I somehow wandered into a construction zone.  It was kind of scary and I couldn’t go back the way I came, which further complicated the directional blunder.  But only about 15 minutes later, I found my way back to the main road and headed home (for real this time).

 Me in the office on my first day.

Two cigarette vending machines...just in case you can't wait two seconds for someone else to finish getting their cancer sticks.