A very personal blog

One to ten

13:15

It’s day 5 in my new job. I’ve met some of my teammates, attended some meetings, and submitted everything that’s required of me hoping I didn’t miss anything. I’m not doing much yet. Understandably. 

I’m the only one present in this lane (so far). One of my teammates is sick, the other is remote, and my manager only comes in once a week. I’m trying to make myself as comfortable as possible given the seat sharing policy in this office. It’s hard. Not having a place of your own lol. Although our team has a designated area and I’ve been sticking around in this cube for the past few days, it’s not like I own it and can personalize it according to my very specific workstation preferences haha. I couldn’t even adjust the monitors because who knows if I still have this desk tomorrow? I was advised to get a locker so I did. Unfortunately it sits on a different floor because there are no vacant ones on this level.
 

17:49

I wanted to setup my new locker immediately so I walked to MC Depot earlier this afternoon to buy a padlock. Maps says it’s only a 550m walk from here; mostly flat. Of course it didn’t mention the numerous stoplights I have to wait for and the scorching midday BGC heat that threaten to burn through my darkest sins. It was so fucking hot. And I only walked for ten minutes! Maps says eight, but given my short legs therefore small strides, ten’s about fair. 

Approaching the depot felt like nearing an oasis. I’m almost there, almost half the battle. It should be cold there. I stepped into the warehouse and thanked God for the shade. But where’s the cold. Fucking hell. There’s no airconditioning in this place. Fucking hell. Might as well get over this as quickly as possible. I was sweating profusely the whole time I was picking a lock (pun intended) and lining up at cashier. Thankfully there’s an industrial fan by the counter that brought temporary relief to this agonizing quest. I thought MC Depot caters to a certain demographic, being at BGC lol, but it doesn’t even have airconditioning. How anti-rich.

Should’ve bought a hanky. Beats me why I have to do this so early in my shift (see title). Should’ve done it now, in the afternoon, as the sun sets, where I wouldn’t melt into a puddle of tinted sunscreen.

Well at least it’s done now and I don’t have to carry my headset, mouse, mechanical keyboard, and tumbler from now on every time I come to the office. Yey.

I wonder if I can go about my entire shift not talking to anyone. I have a seatmate now. The area is starting to fill up with people.
I’m worried about my backpay. I haven’t received news on whether I can buy out the two monitors I was supposed to return on my last day. Our local IT says there’s a high chance I can buy it out, but I haven’t heard anything. If it can be bought out I should have received a salary deduction form already. Otherwise, they would’ve told me to return it. The longer this goes unsettled the longer it will take for my clearance to get routed to completion. Argh. And we’re stinking poor already. 

I should get a banh mi. And Vietnamese coffee. Hope they accept card cos I’m so fucking poor right now.

19:03

They don’t.

My laptop spacebar is doing an annoying squeaking sound. I kept my mechanical keyboard in favor of a more silent option because uhm I feel like my pretentious typing is gonna tick some people off. Who’s this newbie who doesn’t even have anything on her plate yet and yet types like she’s resolving a P1 incident lol.

I badly want to go on an Ikea shopping spree. The mobile app is buggy and I can’t add items to the cart. Somehow it gets deleted so it’s no use using it as a wishlist of some sort. I want a taller shoe cabinet, frames, a fake plant, an uplighter, and a storage box. Also some meatballs.

Update on my monitors. I have to return them to the office. Damn. Here I thought I could buy them out. They were very good monitors. VESA compliant, has HDMI, DisplayPort, and tons of USB ports for charging. I’m looking online for similar monitors and they’re so damn expensive. Should I bite into this second hand Dell monitor that’s exactly what I need? It sells for only 5k but is probably hit and miss with the quality. Most reviews are good but I don’t wanna risk ending up with a spotty screen as I’m gonna use it as my main monitor.

19:57

I just checked out a VESA mount and a laptop stand. 


20:31

I really don’t know what to do. I think I could work from home tomorrow if none of my teammates are coming in to the office. At least I could get up early and try to go to Megamall to probably buy a new monitor. Now I’m excited. 

I shouldn’t have completed the mandatory training yesterday. I should’ve chopped the modules to bits so I’m not left with absolutely nothing to do on a day where there are a lot of people around me (who are probably wondering if I’m an equal opportunity hire on account of my inability to speak [and socialize]). It’s hard to pretend you’re doing something productive. I’ve scrolled through the code of conduct, re-read the welcome email a hundred times, but I really can’t do much without admin access. Once I get my admin access I can pretend to look busy again installing stuff and reading Confluence articles. 


21:15

Wow I think I can survive an entire shift without talking to anyone woah. You can tell by the length of this brain dump how badly this asocial animal needs an outlet. It’s not like I didn’t utter a single word in the past eight hours. I did talk, you know, to the guards. And the staff at Family Mart and Banh Mi Kitchen where I bought dinner. That counts as social interaction right? I’m not totally mute the entire day.

Clock is ticking and I can’t fucking wait to get home and pack up my two monitors and drive them back to my old office. My old office. My beloved old office. Hay. Did I make the right choice moving here? 

We’ll see on the payslip haha. But for now, let me regret leaving my beautiful motorized standing desk at White & Case. I miss my old office.

21:54

I’ve brought some of my stuff to my locker and also took a walk outside around the building. Just to pass time. And yet here I am still waiting to clock out. Just a few minutes more before I punch out of our timetracker that, according to my manager, nobody really checks cos we’re on an honesty system around here. Still, I have to show some integrity right? At least on my first six months, kidding. Haha.

22:05

Hallelujah I’m going home!