Blah Blah from The TeaBreak Team.

Next week I will be tasked with more interesting (and important) work and I shall also be receiving the first paycheck

It was so easy in uni. Don’t feel like working? Just get up and go home, no one cares! Feeling drowsy? Well, there is always tomorrow to finish off the work. This luxury is perhaps snatched away when you start fulltime work. Take an example, I stared at the gap between the two monitors that I have for about one hour trying hard to get out of sleep-mode. Two mugs of coffee were absolutely worthless. Had this been uni, I’d have gone home the minute I felt I was not doing anything (or maybe do something else). At office, I was just hoping that the posture looked as if I was doing something. Then there is this thought that people may actually be watching you since you’re new here. But I don’t think people care a lot as long as you get the work done.

So far, I think, apart from the manager I am the person who leaves the room most often, either going for coffee, tea, chocolate, lunch, accompany a smoker friend, toilet, or just a quick walk in the hall. But hey its not all because of sleep and not having *that* much to do now…sometimes the compile/synthesis stuff take so long (it may take days too later when the designs get big) that it gets boring to watch the screen hoping to get the result soon. And sometimes the software that you need is not available because all the licenses are being used by important people for REAL work (unlike a freshie who just wants to play with it).

Apart from getting up for short breaks, I also use the e-mail quite a lot to communicate with my friend who sits couple of meters away, and another friend who sits in a different office. Mostly, its not work-related stuff that we discuss.

In the uni there was an option to miss lectures and just sleep. No, that is not the case at work. Whether you have work or not, you are being paid to be there! And if you don’t have work, then find something substantial to do!

Something that was kinda bothering me lately is that there used to be a target always at uni. A deadline. After which things would subside, and you could breath a sigh of relief. Then there was the knowledge that this will end in a certain number of years. Now at work, if you’re done with something, you will be given something else. And there is no forseeable end. There is responsibility though, and suddenly you start feeling that a lot of work done by others may be depending on yours.

One good thing that has happened in the past three weeks is that I’ve got a hang of the Scottish accent. In the first week, I didn’t understand much of what my manager said. Now its getting better.

It may appear as if I am complaining. But that is not the case actually. I am just figuring out myself what changes I have to go through. I am helped by the fact that our office environment is really relaxed. The dress code is casual and apart from proper hot food, you can eat/drink at your desk even if its not the lunchtime. That is more like the uni! You can plug-in earphones while working and that’s quite normal. There is no difference between seniors and juniors and you can just walk to anyone and ask them to explain anything to you. People are very helpful indeed.

On that note, I met the very limited number of Pakistanis that work here. There is this guy from Lahore who has a twin brother working in the same company at the same position. Both worked for the same company back in Pakistan too and obviously both have the exact same education from the same institute. I met one of them because the other one is on leave. All of them have been here for a while and I went with them for Friday prayer today. Again, nice people!

Next week I will be tasked with more interesting (and important) work and I shall also be receiving the first paycheck

Anyway so worklife is very different from all the years I’ve lived before and its kinda nice too. There will be many more things that I may like/dislike later but for now I think His Mercy is really being showered on me. Things seem nice and easy. I hope this continues for long.