Welcome! You Should Probably Put These Waders On Now [Where the Hell Was I?]

April 20, 2004

Welcome! You Should Probably Put These Waders On Now

We hired a new person in my office recently. Today was his first day.

Man, oh man. Is he in trouble.

He finished up orientation around eleven thirty this morning. We grabbed some lunch together, and then I asked if he had 'a few minutes' to chat about what we're going to be working on in the coming months. That's 'few minutes', folks. Few. Minutes. Hee.

Three hours later, he left my office, cross-eyed and twitching. And not because of some screw-with-the-new-guy, squeal-like-a-pig hazing adventure, either.

(We wait at least a week for that around my job. That lulls 'em into a false sense of security, you see. Most of 'em never see it coming.)

No, our new friend was simply overloaded with facts and minutiae and our overloaded schedule of organizational meetings. (Four hours a day's worth, whether we need 'em or not!)

(And frankly... we don't. The bosses don't care. Poopyheads, dammit.)

Anyway, I almost felt sorry for the new guy after all of that, even if I was the one who tortured him for half the afternoon with a bunch of 'upgrade this' and 'enhance that' and 'roll the other thing out ASAP'.

(That's 'A-S-A-P, by the way. We're not gonna pronounce it 'aysap' around here, you got it? That shit's gonna get somebody bitchslapped. 'Aysap'. Hell is wrong with people, anyway?)

All right. Where the hell was I? Ah, the new guy. Right.

The thing is, I hope I didn't scare him off completely. He left soon after our little chat to get a picture taken for his photo ID. Or so he said, at least. I'm wondering whether he didn't really hop out for a couple quick brews and a resume update. Hell, if they'd done the same to me on my first day, I'd have probably leapt out the window and ended the hellish nightmare right then. Of course, if I'd thought of the beer-and-resume thing, I'd have done that, instead. Much less painful, and far more hoppily delicious. Beer makes everything better.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow whether we still have the new guy, or whether we need to start another search. I suspect he'll come crawling back for more. (And in the form of a two-hour nine am meeting tomorrow, too -- talk about throwing him to the wolves.) He's a smart guy, though -- he'll do just fine, once the eye-glazing shock wears off. I'll just have to resist hitting him again with a big bunch of workspeak, until he recovers enough to get his legs under him.

On the other hand, he is a smart guy, like I said. Maybe he won't come back, and we'll have to hire a replacement. That means I'll have to go through this afternoon's spiel with someone else. Yeargh. Maybe I'll have a go at throwing myself out that window in my office, after all. Can I at least defenestrate before that meeting at nine? Some things really are worse than a horrific, bloody death surrounded by shards of glass and bits of your own exploded skull. Seriously.