First days in a new job....

The obvious question from the previous post having just read it back (and looked at the photo) is why are you drinking beer for breakfast? Well obviously I’m not, but the point of this story is that you can eat pickled gherkins with whatever the hell you want, whether it be whilst drinking beer in the evening or with cheese and crisp breads in the morning

So anyway…..1 week later and here we are.

What with everything being closed for Easter we kinda had to stop sorting stuff out as everything closed down, so we just spent a few days hanging out and doing the Stockholm tourist thing. You can see the photos on flickr, its been a sunny few days, everything is starting to green up a it with hints of spring and the city is looking better and better.

We went walking at the nature reserve which is just up the road from us for a few hours on Monday and that completed a fairly chilled weekend of the usual type of thing from home really – cooking, eating, drinking, walking, hanging out in town. It was all good and the right way to be before the start of a new job.

So come Tuesday morning it was time to go to work – I must say compared to some jobs I felt decidedly relaxed the night before and I slept quite well. The morning came round and I headed off for my huge 3 minute walk to work. Quite a change from 90 minutes on London public transport.

I think I felt so relaxed because of the fact that I’d met so many of my colleagues in a fairly social situation at the interview stage and kinda felt that I knew what I was getting into.

Anyway the first morning, Alf, my new boss spent the morning driving us around to complete a few more of our administrative tasks. First off we went to Bostad to sign the contract on our new house. Then we went to the tax office to apply for a social security number. This all seemed to go frightening well until today at lunchtime they phoned me back to say that the copies of documents that I’d submitted were not correct and that we didn’t to provide some more info. Anyway – its all moving in the right direction if nothing else. It’ll be a while before I get a bank account, and therefore a while before I get paid, and it also turns out that I can’t pick up the car that we ought until I have a social security number from the tax office. At the end of the day though it all just takes a bit of time. We’re getting there.

Alf helped us a load yesterday anyway, translating for us in the offices etc. We also went to a couple of banks, but we couldn’t open accounts without the documents from the tax office. Its all quite chicken and egg really. Anyway onto Microsoft…

Even after 2 days in the office, the culture is distinctly noticeably different. Quite how much of this is down to Swedish work culture and how much is down to Microsoft I’m unsure as yet, but its been most pleasant so far.

Currently I’m just building and configuring my computers and the like. I could go on for ages about the amount and quality of kit that I have compared to BNY, but then this is probably taken as read! For those of you still at BNY though…..basically though I have a new server, a new tablet laptop, a couple of 19” flat screens wired together, a proper office chair and general cupboards, space and suitable equipment (basically it sure makes a change from buying all my own stuff whilst working for a bank). The space and comfort is very pleasing indeed.

Beyond my actual desk space, there’s the whole office environment generally. Everything is so damn spacious and comfy, there’s free fruit and drinks, the coffee is more than drinkable and you just kinda feel at home really. When I arrived my colleagues / boss had bought me a huge bunch of flowers and an easter egg to welcome me. Its just the little touches.

Obviously though I’m not saying that this is some great utopian vision of work life balance. At the end of the day the bank paid me nearly double what MS are paying, and frankly I was fine with that, cos it was a fair deal. I was happy with them being the crappiest damn employer in terms of anything but money, cos well they paid they fair due. The true trouble is that there were tons of people who weren’t being paid their fair worth who were being paid their crappy London impossible to live on salaries, and its those people that deserve to be treated better with all the benefits when the sheer financial strength of the package is not up to it. I guess I’m experienced and lucky enough to realise this, having worked for enough dumb ass financial houses and the like, but it must be tough for others in a different position. I’m just gonna enjoy the change of culture for a while yet…..

Everyone seems busy in the much the same way as any office, and everyone has the usual stuff going down – “we can’t afford that because of budget constraints” – “we need to focs on customer satisfaction” – the usuals, nothing surprising, but the pace, the people, the plesantness, the overall vibe for want of a better word is different. I think so far that I weigh on the side of this being the Swedish thing as against the MS thing, but we’ll see. After all I have worked for suitably trendy dot com startups in the UK – and the kinda tried to promote that feeling I think but it just couldn’t quite be managed.

Anyway enough the moment, if anyone has read this far then congratulations and respect to your great stamina! Many more things happened today, inside and outside of work, but I reckon I’ve had enough typing for the moment.