Saturday, May 22, 2004

The First Day

"So, how was the first day?"
      I woke up at 7:00AM, S(hit), S(howered), and S(haved). I got to work about 8:00PM. But it wasn't as simple as "getting to work." The building I work in is the largest one story buildling I've ever looked for a cubicle in. Luckily, my mentor had the foresight to call me on Thursday to tell me the grid location of my cube. So, I figure I'm going to walk in, and I'll magically know where my cube is suppose to be. I walked into the building, and all I could see is a hallway that was about 600 yards long, if not longer. Where the shit was the grid? There were doors off the hallway, but I was scared that I was just going to walk into some dudes offices. It turns out, I found it about 30 seconds later, and the grid system was a piece of cake.
      So, I get there, and I meet my manager, Paul. He's SUPER nice, he gets me a laptop and a cell phone (apparently, only DBA interns get cell phones). We talked about a few logistical thing, then me and my mentor, John took off towards my desk. I set my stuff down, and I went on a journey through four rows of cubes. Luckily it was a Friday and a lot of people telecommute on Fridays. So, I only had to meet about 10 people right then. Over the course of the day, I think I probably got introduced to about... 1000000 people. I might remember like... 5 of them. Luckily, I get to meet them all again like 10000 times. You do the math.
      So, all day I got deluged with information... it was kind of hard to remember it all. A lot of it was just "HOWTO" stuff about getting setup. Luckily, we didn't really cover anything pertaining to my job. Of the stuff pertaining to my job: I've got 40 hours of Oracle DB Administration training, and about 5000 pages of Oracle Concepts to cover, then I've got another couple hundred pages of SQL*Plus to read about. There is probably some PL_SQL to cover too.
      Over the course of the day, me and the interns I had orientation with managed to plan dinner at Red Robin at 8:30PM. I got there about 8:40. I walked around, and didn't recognize anyone, so I left. I got out the door, and recognized a few people, so I went back in with them. Then I realized that I had walked past a group of like 14 interns, and not even noticed (didn't I feel like a genius). I think we ended with a group of like... 22 interns. Everything from Aeronautical Engineers to Supply Chain Management. And again, they were all so nice and I couldn't even believe it.
      So, I think this post is good enough... And, I keep getting distracted by watching Sex in the City. Just FYI, this show rocks.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

The Orientation

      Today was my first day on the payroll. I had to go to intern orientation. I was in a group of about 20 other interns, they came from North Carolina (NS State) to Seattle (U of Washington). I knew all these kids were smart, because Boeing's intership program is somewhat exclusive. I had no idea they were all going to be suprisingly nice, and outgoing. I'm usually the only person in a group to speak up, and make friends, but everyone was being a Type A personality. So, how exclusive is Boeing's intership program? In the Puget Sound there were 10,000 internship applications and they only accepted 250!
      So, what was the orientation about? In general, it was about what is on, and how to use Boeing's intraweb. More specifically: How to use the Employee Timekeeping System (ETS), how to select a health care and dental care (Benefits), Boeing Ethics, Boeing Employee Credit Union, Travel Expenses, and other general things.

  • The Intraweb - This system is incredible. There are like 1000 different sites that let you search for EVERYTHING. In fact, there is a thing called BLUES (Boeing's Look Up Everything System). There is information about everything, the health clubs, and fitness centers, info about the parapyschology club, the beermakers club, and about 1000 other clubs.

  • Employee Timekeeping System, ETS - They have a pretty sweet timekeeping system. During this part of the orientation, we learned about the different types of common "baseline work schedules." You can do the "4-10s": work 4 days a week, 10 hours a day for 40 hours total a week, which means you get one off. Or, the "9 80s": work 9 out of 10 days, 9 hours a day. Or, the standard 8 hour work day. I think the 9-80 is pretty sweet, I want to see if my manager/mentor will let me to do that one. Having every other friday off sounds like something my lazy ass would love.

  • Benefits - There is a HMO plan, a traditional plan, and a hybrid between the two. The hybrid, a CCS (I don't remember what it stands for) is totally free, which is pretty cool. There is also a free dental plan, but, I don't really care, because I don't think I'll be needing any dental work this summer. I was planning on getting in some bar fights... but I think I'll skip those this year. When you're out of Idaho, the bars just aren't the same :)

  • Ethics - They really place a huge emphasis on "doing the right thing." The orientation leader said we were going to watch a video of an example of a good ethics. I'm thinking: "ummm.... riiiight, this'll be a great time to catch up on that sleep I missed out on this morning", but it was short, interesting, and it was an ACTUAL example of someone reporting an incident, and how it saved a satellite launch.

  • Boeing Employee Credit Union, BECU - A pretty sweet credit union. They basically sign you up for free, and give you free checks. They actually are a pretty sweet bank... maybe I'll get an account. I've got to talk to my accountant/financial advisor/bankroll/lawyer first, but I think she might agree.

  • Travel Expenses - I get money for moving over here... solid.

Monday, May 17, 2004

The Paperwork

      I just had to go down to Boeing, and do my "Pre-Employment Paperwork." I had to drive all the way to Boeing Field (its a 15! minute drive), and wait for 30 minutes to get a Visitor Badge.
      The reason it took so long to get the badge was because a bunch of interns were there to do the same thing as me... fill out 3! sheets of paper. And it turns out, there are 3 people from the University of Idaho that are here as interns too. I'd actually heard about one of them, from some of my friends. Everytime I said I was going to be at Boeing this summer, someone would say: "OH! My friend Brad is going to be there too." It turns out that Brad is even going to be working in my building. But, he's doing accounting or something. It seems like almost all of the interns that I was there with today are doing some sort of business type intern, not technical. They also had to go through a formal interview process... and as I said before, I only had to talk to Paul for 6:48 before he gave me a job. Anyways, there is also some girl that is from U of I too, but I already forgot her name.
      It took a total of 5 minutes to fill out the paperwork. And it only would have taken 5 seconds if the "leader lady" hadn't been giving us instructions: "Put your birthday in the box marked birthday, and the date in the box marked date..."
      So, I don't know why we just didn't mail this paperwork in, its wasn't complicated or anything. But, they did have to photocopy my passport to verify that I was a citizen.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

The Beginning...

How it started:
      I went to the Career Fair over at WSU. Talked to the guys at the Boeing booth. They gave me a pen with the Boeing Employment website address on it. A few months later, I checked the website out. I just counted, and it turns out that I've applied for 33 individual positions.

      A few weeks ago, I got a call from a lady that worked at Boeing, and I talked to her for about 30 minutes. I was interviewing for a job developing a website for a maintence documentation product that Boeing has. It didn't sound like that much fun, but hey... it was Boeing! I had another interview with Suzanne and a couple other people from her team. I got a call back a few days later... I didn't get the job. But Suzanne said she would give my resume around to other people in her office because she liked me... and I'm thinking: "Yeah right."

      Well, I got another call, a week later from Paul. I talked to Paul for 6 minutes and 49 seconds (literally), and he had offered me a job. I'm going to be a DBA intern for Boeing.
    Paul warned me, but the deluge of paperwork was about to start:
  • Application for Employment, 10 pages
  • Post-offer Health Questionairre, 4 pages
  • Export Control Compliance Verification Form, 1 page
  • Employment Eligibility Verification, 1 page
  • Intellectual Property and Confidentiality Agreement, 3 pages
  • Ethics Acknowledgement Form, 1 page
  • Code of Conduct Certification, 1 pages
  • There is more too, I have to fill out some more forms to get my relocation money, and for getting per diem while moving over.

      I have to go get a urine analysis drug test on Friday too. I think that is most of it. I know that all of this work doesn't just apply to Boeing... but for the love of Pete, show me some compassion people. And the worst part is? I have crappy hand-writing. So, I have to write really slowly so that it looks half decent. Writing slowly lasts for the first half of a page then I get too impatient, and it turns to crap.

      Luckily I know some people in Seattle from when I lived there. One of my good friends from my years at UW just happened to have a room available in his apartment. So, I'm moving in with him on Sunday. I have to go fill out some of that paperwork at Boeing on Monday, then next Thursday I have "orientation." Which starts at 7:30 AM. At least the day of orientation is paid. Oh yeah, this is also the best paying job I've ever had: $17.09/hour. Hopefully I won't blow it all on crack and prostitutes... but, I've got the self-control of a hungry lion with a zebra dangling in front of its face.

      But, before I do anything for Boeing, I have to survive finals week. I definitely need to quite writing, and study for my finals.

--
Adam

I'm going to need something to do...

Well, I'm moving to Seattle in a couple days (after finals). So, I figure I might be a little bored when I first get there, before I reestablish friendships that I had while I lived there a couple years ago... and also, before I make new friends (which I usually do pretty quickly).

Since I'm going to be bored, I figured I'd start a blog... since I'll have all this time to kill. Plus, I've never had one, so I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

This is all the first post will be. buh bye.