First Week Down, Next About to Start

 Well, one week down. 

    This week was a bit of a learning week, and next week will continue this.

    Many who are not in tech, or hope to one day be in tech, don't know what an actual tech office is like, or the daily routine. You might find this unbelievable, but it's true. For the uninitiated, the tech world is a shadowy play where one goes to an office and does.... things. What things, in what order, are all a mystery. The office that I am in is quite large. think of two or three school classrooms together. It is open, meaning there are no cubicles, everyone can see everyone, talk and collaborate.

    The first day I met with the head of the group. This group handles the tech needs large lab company in India. This company is responsible for blood tests and lab work. It is a very large company processing hundreds of thousands of tests per day. The room probably has forty or so people, clusters it seems like. Each cluster is working on a different aspect of the company's needs. Some are working on the customer parts, paying for lab work, processing payments. Some are working on the lab results themselves, how they are processed and where they go. Each cluster is using a different tech stack.

    On my first day, I just took a seat. There is no sitting arrangement, but most people sit in the same places everyday. I am interested in the backend technologies, so I was told to start looking at Mongodb and Docker. So that is what I did, I reviewed Docker on tutorialpoint, pretty much the whole day. The most exciting thing about this day was the at some point in the last week or so, the network went down for a client. The head of the room was speaking very loudly to the client, explaining the situation why the situation might have happened using a series of stories and metaphors.

    There is a break room, with a coffee machine outside, not a regular coffee machine, but that is for another post. So the first day I went to lunch by myself, not knowing anybody in the office, just keeping to myself.   

    The second day was much of the same, studying Docker, and maybe some Mongodb. I can't really remember, it all runs together. But there was improvement, I did start talking to those next to me. The group to my left were working on a feature where users could be by phone through something like Venmo. The person to my right was doing database work and git-merge problems. So I talked with them and looked at their work. I had never seen code in the workplace before, so this was something that I was a bit fascinated by.

    But then, at mid day, they asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with them. I thought that we were going to go to the small break room and sit and chat with our little lunches. Have you seen King Of The Hill? There is an episode where they go to Japan and sleep in this little cramped room but at the end they learn that if they just opened a door that there was a full apartment. This is the same. Expecting to go to the little room but instead we head through the security doors at go upstairs, we are on the 12th floor. Walking up the stairs two floors reveals a large cafeteria. It was a food like of sorts, rice, golub jamon, sambar, samosas. Miuk, with whom I was walking, took a large metal plate and put this and that on it. We sat down at a table somewhere in the room opposite the food, sat and ate. 

    This was the highlight of my week, meeting new coworkers and feeling less isolated. Huzzah! 

    Next week things SHOULD pick up, maybe I am assigned so work. Who knows?