Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Honeymoon is Over

12 weeks have elapsed since I arrived in Seattle. In the grand scheme of things, 3 months probably doesn't seem like that much time. But in the context of my life so far, that usually marks a point at which something moderate happens: the end of a soccer season, an academic marking period/semester, a summer job/internship (or more generally, the summer), etc. So usually after this much time spent doing something, I've come to anticipate a certain amount of change. For the first time, though, that won't be the case.

I didn't expect something to change at this point. My plan has always been to stay here for maybe 3-5 years and then re-evaluate how things are going, how (if at all) my interests have changed, and what other opportunities might be available. I'm not opposed to doing this earlier, but I certainly need at least a year under my belt before I can adequately judge the state of things. So I'll stay the course for now, but will start to make some larger plans like traveling to Japan and possibly starting grad school (though I'm perfectly happy NOT being in school right now).

On Thursday I had yet another (and final) orientation at work. This one was specifically for the group I work for, that being Apex (Apple productivity experiences). Effectively, what we work on is Microsoft Office for Mac. This was a day-long event where I learned about this history of our group and how it's changed over time. I met executives and people that have been working on the team for 20+ years, as well as lots of other people that just joined the team. That includes people that work at the Mountain View and Beijing locations. Part of the reason I didn't have this until 3 months in was that they only do this twice a year since it does involve people traveling from other areas.

As I think I've said before, I find learning about this history incredibly fascinating - getting the inside scoop of a company that was a major influence on the history of the entire industry, and more specifically my team's role in that history. I hear about products that were done in the past, how we build them, what worked and what didn't, and how all of that influences how and what we do now. The team had celebrated their 15th year anniversary a couple years ago, and they showed us the video that people made to celebrate it. Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates made appearances, so it was really cool to hear them talk about the immediate group that I now work for.

The first thing we did was get to know some of the people there. I had already met about 8 out of the 30 people at the event, but there were still plenty of others to meet. There were people from Redmond I still didn't know, but also plenty of others. One person I met particularly stuck out in my mind. He just started in Redmond earlier that week and had just got back from an international backpacking vacation with his wife and kids. He's from Philadelphia, and consequently a Flyers fan, so we were commiserating on the likely lack of a season this year. He's deaf, and so he had sign language interpreters (yes, plural) there to help him out. I realized that I think this was the first time I'd ever interacted directly with someone that couldn't hear or speak, and I found myself curious about a lot of things. Should I look at him or the interpreters when talking? We discussed some confidential stuff at the meeting, so are his interpreters under the same NDA as everyone else? How much can actually get translated into sign language? The interaction seemed very normal, but it stuck with me for the days after, so I've decided to take a sign language class. The local colleges offer classes, and I think it'll be interesting to learn about everything associated with it.

Other recent activities include restaurant week, meeting people at a friend's housewarming party, karaoke, and more soccer. We met some different people at the park and got a good game going. I've also seen people at another park playing cool games like bicycle polo and foosball. Foosball involves playing soccer on a tennis court, but the players are attached to ropes stretching across the court so you can only move laterally. I'll have to take pictures at some point because it really is awesome to watch.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Where Did The Sun Go?

The moment I have been warned about for months has finally come: it has been overcast and rainy for the last 3 days in Seattle. Anywhere else, that may just sound like a lousy weekend. Here, however, it indicates that summer is finally over, and with that the fantastic weather I've been enjoying.

Thursday was the last day it was mostly clear and sunny, which was good since there was a big celebration at work. For a few hours at the end of the day, there was free food and drinks, and an awesome cover band playing. They even set off some fireworks - it was a great last day in the sun.

Friday started out a little cold, wet, and windy. Nothing unbearable, and certainly not as cold as it gets on the East coast, but enough that I wore a rain jacket (one I get specifically for the weather out here). Saturday was more of the same, but my roommates and I still went to the park to play some soccer. We were hoping to meet up with the people we played with last week, but they never showed up so we just stayed for a couple hours. There were some younger kids there playing with their parents watching, and they wanted to join us when they saw us taking penalty kicks. We let them take turns shooting on goal, mostly letting them score. Their parents were very appreciative, and it was actually fun for us too. I was surprised their parents were okay with it at first; I half expected their parents to shoo them away from us for fear that they were either bothering us or that we wouldn't "play nice".

The rain held off enough that we still got to go out on Friday and Saturday night. During the day it was enough to have us stay in, at least on Sunday, which was fine since there was plenty of football to watch. The Patriots were in Seattle this weekend, and the Seahawks got a narrow victory. We could hear the fireworks go off whenever Seattle scored, and Andrew (being from Massachusetts) was upset about the loss.

We also met some friends at a restaurant on Sunday night for dinner. This week is Restaurant Week in Seattle where you can get a 3-course meal for $28 at a LOT of restaurants. We went to a place called Aqua in Belltown, and it was awesome. It's right on the edge of the pier, so there's a great view of the water and the port. The food was also fantastic. I don't tend to order seafood a lot, but it's really great out here so I'm starting to get a great taste for it.

Bad weather aside, some things look pretty cool. The view from out apartment has a great view of the area with lots of trees which have started to turn all sorts of colors. At some point I'll take a picture, which I wish I had done with a lot of the stuff this week. Nothing much else to write about, other than I should be getting ready for work tomorrow. They added a new shuttle stop that is only a couple blocks from our apartment, so my commute is even shorter now. All I've done as a result is stay up later since now I can sleep in a little longer.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

A Day in the Life (Part 1)

Yes, I've neglected this blog for far too long. No, I don't really have a good excuse for doing so. Now that that's out of the way, let's get to it:

First, I'll briefly recap what I've missed. 2 weeks ago, work was really busy but also a lot of fun. We had a big milestone coming up, so people were pretty much "heads down", meaning intently focussed on getting everything done. While that might sound stressful, I actually enjoyed the time. People wanted to make sure we hit the milestone with a high level of quality, so nobody had a problem staying late to ensure that. I would have found it frustrating if 5pm rolled around and some of the team felt like the workday was over so it was no longer any of their concern. Quite the contrary, actually - people wanted to be satisfied with the work we did before we went home at the end of the day. Not only is that the type of place I love to work, but it's great that everyone also feels that way.

This week was a little more difficult. I hit some roadblocks when I kept running into things I didn't know how to do. It wasn't necessarily a problem I couldn't solve, more that I just wasn't sure of the protocol when I was asked to do certain things. Eventually, I could help from more colleagues and mentor who were extremely helpful and got me out of the rut. I felt I ended the week on a high note with some meaningful contributions. There were even points where people came to ask me questions and I knew the answer! I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's really the little things that start to make the difference, that make me feel like a valued member of my team.

This weekend was also pretty fun. Friday night, my friend from school had some people over to celebrate her birthday. There aren't many people from Tufts out here, so it was really good to see people from there again, even if it was really only 1 person. Saturday turned out to be quite a long day. In the afternoon, my roommates and I went to a nearby park to play some soccer. There was you youth game going on when we got there, so we killed time until it was over. While we were there, some other guys came up and asked if we wanted to play. We ended up have a 5-on-5 game for a couple hours which was a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I seriously played soccer, so it was great to finally do it again. These guys were from Colombia and Saudi Arabia, and were pretty decent at the game. We held our own, though, at least until our stamina gave out. I am horribly out of shape, and this was a stark reminder of that. We said we'd meet them there at the same time next Saturday, so I'll have to start working out. People at work are also talking about making a team to compete in company leagues where there are games on the weekend. Yup, definitely gonna have to start making time for the gym. Sunday we went and saw "Looper" which was a pretty good movie. A really interesting concept, with one of my favorite actors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

And now to the main point of this post. I'll be using pictures to take you through what a usual day looks like for me. To make sure I don't ramble of for too long, this will just be the first part. I'm not sure how many parts there will be, so I'll keep you in suspense to keep you checking back. Without further adieu:

My day starts here with some morning SportsCenter and cereal. This was taken at night, so just imagine it light outside
On my way to the bus stop.

The Connector! A shuttle with wifi just for employees. I work in Redmond, but this one goes to Bellevue.
View from the 520 bridge.
Some people out on Lake Washington.
Some day, it would be awesome to have a house there. 
Who says Seattle doesn't have clear skies?
This house wouldn't be bad either...
A small cove where it would also be awesome to live.
People like to have fun with their office windows.
Off the bus, I walk through half of campus.
One of many cafeterias with outdoor seating.
My favorite part of morning where I basically walk through a mini forest to get to my building.

Some days I take another shuttle from where the Connector drops off that goes straight to my building.
This is just too awesome to pass up, though.


My building!
Master Chief greets me in the lobby every day.
I took these pictures a few weeks ago, but the weather still looks like that. My commute takes about 45 minutes from when I leave my apartment to when I walk into my office, and a good portion of that I'm checking email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. At some point I'll have more pictures to take you through the rest of the day.