So my first week at Cloudmark has ended and, so far, I’ve not had to do anything 🙂
I’m very much the new guy but, remarkably, I’m also not the token Brit. The CEO and CFO are both from the UK.
Getting to the office has been a breeze so far. The Caltrain goes from Millbrae to San Francisco every 10-15 minutes in the morning and is about 3 blocks away from the office. Getting back is a little more difficult because after 7:20pm, there are only 2 other trains at 8:25pm and 10:00pm which means lots of waiting around if I get held up in the office. It’s still more cost effective than driving in but I’m losing flexibility for that saving. We’ll see how it goes for a few weeks.
Next week, I’m in Washington, D.C. for MAAWG ( Mail Anti-Abuse Working Group ). It’s a chance for ISPs, vendors and customers to get together and discuss standards on how to tackle things like spam. Again, I don’t have to do too much other than listen and smile while I direct people’s queries to m’colleagues.
I’m not sure how long I can play the ignorance card, my boss and a couple of colleagues come from Scalix so they have been selling me up to management. This means that big things are expected and I hope I can deliver.
Apart from working, I’ve also added to my list of flat-pack furniture construction skills ( and injuries ) by putting Rachel’s loft bed together. When I was taking my “between jobs” vacation, I found out that a honey-do list had been drawn up without my consent. This included painting the girls’ bedrooms and going to IKEA to buy new furniture. We got the rooms painted but the furniture didn’t get delivered until this week. So, last night, while I was supposed to be packing, I built Rachel’s bed for her.
I now have stigmata-like blisters on my hands where the screwdriver was rubbing while I attached the bed rails to the frame. I’ll use this to my advantage by pretending I can’t lift anything up with my hands.
Sadly, I’ve not had too much time to play World of Warcraft and I feel like I’ve gone cold turkey. Stupidly, I forgot to install it on my work laptop before I set off for this business trip so that means I won’t be able to play while I’m in the hotel :S