My first blog from my new office

Now this is my first blog from my new office.

Being a bank, they have some real serious security procedures. Too many passwords…way too many. To set up the minimum no. of passwords to let me access the internal sites and internet took good one week. But my software installations are still on its way, so you see I haven’t got much to do.

Though I am yet to check out the code base, yet going by the technical documents given to me, the project is hardly any challenge. We used jdk 1.5 earlier (planning to upgrade to jdk 1.6 soon), hibernate and springs, and ajax and rich faces in my earlier project…but here they work with jdk 1.4 and JDBC…that’s it!!! So you see, technically its pulling me back to where I was 4 years back. Since this is the IT division of the bank, there isn’t any competition from other servicing companies. So people take a chill pill here.
So it’s not a good feeling at all…kills your enthusiasm.

I have to wake up at 6.45 every morning, contrary to my earlier schedule at 9 am. I have to walk to the bust stop, a 15 mins walk from home, two times a day. I can’t manage to sleep a blink on the way, in the bus. I reach home around 7-7.15 in the evening, saving hardly 2 hours compared to my earlier schedule.

So am I complaining???

No I am not.
Hmm…well let’s just say, not yet.
The reason being the team and the office. The office is the coolest I have ever worked in.
People reach here between 8.45-9.15 in the morning and leave at 5.45-6.15 in the evening.
It’s a good change to find non-frowning faces around.
The team is a bunch of mad caps (most of them), but an otherwise fun loving team.
The HR and Finance are very friendly, and the managers are friendly and enthusiastic.
The food in the IT mall is great…so I gotta watch my weight again.
I walk quite a lot all day, so might lose all that I gain at the IT mall.
The tea at office is very nice, and needs no coupons.
It’s nice to work in a carpeted office after a long time.
They have 13 holidays all though the year, my previous employer had only 9.
I have *Drums roll please* 32 leaves in a year, out of which 26 are mandatory, meaning they are not to be carried forward to the next year. With all my provious employers I had 18-20 leaves per year. Also getting the leaves approved was a huge pain in the neck. Here they are pretty flexible with the leave system.
I have a personal IP phone at my disposal, at all other places that I have worked earlier, 3-4 people used to share one phone.
I can carry my I-Pod inside which none of my previous employers allowed.
There are quite some short term onsite travels here, to Egypt, Paris, Russia among other places (yipeeeee!!).

So it’s kinda great, except for the everyday travel to office and the technology I am to work with. I will certainly try to find out some good projects around and see if I can get through them.