First day of work!

Hey guys,

First day of work today.  For those of you that don't know, I work here [edit: removed website, I don't really want this blog turning up on a google search of the company name], which is a firm that primarily does this, but I will be on the team doing this, and let's be honest because of my background I'll be doing a lot of this, which is much to my dismay because it is of course the bastard child of this, my great archenemy.  So that should be fun!

Actually, I'm really excited.  My boss, Mike, is a really cool guy (I had a great time talking to him over coffee yesterday, and a fun time working with him today), and all of the other analysts and interns seem really cool.  I actually didn't do much of "my" work today . . . I came in at a really busy time, so basically the attitude was, "you already know how to read, how to write, how to think, so here are a bunch of tasks that only require those skills, you can do other stuff once we get free time to train you".  I know phrased like that it sounds like they're neglecting me, but it felt like the complete opposite--from the very first hour I was able to do helpful, meaningful things.
To steal a funny anecdote that I already posted on facebook, I got more or less used as a bargaining chip mid-morning:
Mike, my boss [to Attila, one of the analysts.  Yes his name is Attila]:  "Hey, can you help me on Burkina Faso?"
Attila:  "Not really, no"
M:  "This needs to be delivered this afternoon"
A:  "Ok, then Noah needs to do some work on Croatia"
M:  "That's not really his job"
A:  "Sorry, that's my deal"
M:  "Ok, that's fair"
Thus commenced a lot of time with Google translate, as the particular work to be done consisted largely of translating documents from Croatian and then rewording them to be presentable.  And my Croatian is even worse than my Hungarian

Oh, and by the way, our office building is really cool.  It's actually a former apartment (until recently there just weren't any offices on the Buda side of the river)--as evidenced by the tub in the bathroom XD . . . don't think that gets a lot of use anymore.  But this means that instead of the whole sterile office feel, it's much warmer and more welcoming--arched windows, hardwood floors, non-fluorescent lighting . . . makes a big difference
And the office is in pretty much the best location ever.  First of all, it's a half a block away from the metro station, which doesn't hurt.  Second, it's in a great neighborhood--tons of nice, cheap restaurants (crepes for like $1.50 each!).  Oh and third, it's right across the river from here:

This is, needless to say, awesome

Oh, and finally, as will not surprise anyone who knows me, after but a single day my nice shiny leather shoes are already pretty scuffed.  Good thing I brought polish ;)

Anyways, I'm going to head to bed fairly soon.  Trying to stay on an early schedule for as long as possible--just like Ma5 attendance (9am abstract math lecture guuuuuuh), if I let my standards slide just once they're never going to come back

Noah out