From the inside

No-one ever tells you, up front, that the first few weeks on the job are going to be boring. That you’ll get given no work, and you’ll have to sit there and fill the tedious hours, trying to make it look like you’re actually doing something while all you’re really doing is twiddling your thumbs. Computers are useful for acheiving this, and having three screens doubly – indeed, tripley – so.

Or you get work that is just mindnumbing. Repetitive. This is the kind of work they’re outsourcing to India, and I’m glad of it, but where on earth do they manage to find it for the newbies? It’s drudgery no one wants to do when they’ve signed up to do so much more by way of bigger and better things.
But. When you get on the inside, when you’ve put in 2 to 3 weeks of no work and no play, then people start to open up and tell you that yes, infact, they too went through the same few torturous weeks of wasting time “settling in”. My Dad’s done it, the other grads are saying as much, the older grads here have done it, some of the other team members have admitted as much – the others are still taking their time admitting to it I guess.

So. The news from the inside is: first few weeks of “proper work”? Boring. Like you couldn’t imagine.