Details of my first day
Jul. 19th, 2010 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterFirst day on the job went about as expected. Went through a lot of on-line training exercises talking about the company culture and how to use various systems on the corporate intranet. (I'm leaving off the name of the company as I wouldn't be surprised if they egosurf themselves regularly, tech-oriented as they are, and don't want to risk saying something that would accidentally offend them.)
To my disappointment, even though I'm going to be doing phone support for an on-line division of a well-known big-box retailer, I don't get an employee discount at that retailer because it's subcontract work—I'm not actually working "for" them, I'm working for the call center. (You'd think they'd want to do everything they could to attach the subcontractors to their corporate culture. Oh well.) However, I do get a number of fairly decent discounts with other companies, including AT&T (15% off wireless service—that will certainly help if and when I get an iPhone!). And 10% off at St. George's Barbecue—yum!
I went ahead and set up direct deposit (patting myself on the back for having the forethought to stick a blank check in my wallet just in case they needed it—turned out they didn't, but it came in handy for getting the account and routing numbers) and filled out my W2. I decided to take zero deductions, given my extra income from TeleRead and a medical study I did this year (and others I may yet do later, if my schedule permits). I'll probably end up owing taxes anyway, but at least this way it won't be as much.
Internet access from the call center's Internet breakrooms is a bit more limited than I'd like. They use locked-down Ubuntu machines, which means no ssh or VNC access; they also block access to Twitter and Facebook (though not Seesmic, I found), saying something about checking digital security policies—which I did, and found nothing at all anywhere in them about social networking sites. Oh well. At least if I get an iPhone, I can use it to check those sites on my breaks—though I won't be able to keep it with me apart from then.
The call center has a remarkably strict policy concerning the use of gadgets, due to confidentiality factors. No cell phones on the call floor, period. I never realized how much I came to rely on my iPod Touch and my cell phone when I needed to find out what time it was—until I lost the one and was forbidden from carrying the other. (And to be fair, I'd be forbidden from carrying the one, too, even if I hadn't lost it.) And in a job like this, knowing the exact time is important as you're expected to be back from break exactly on time at the latest—and how punctual we are during training affects how likely we are to get the shift we want.
So after work today, I went out to Wal-Mart and bought my first watch in, well, years. It's a Casio Wave Captor (how can you go wrong with a watch whose name sounds like a Kamen Rider weapon?) that calibrates itself by radio from the atomic clock. And it only cost $30. (I could have gotten a calculator watch for $20, but those are so 1980s. :) I had to turn off auto-daylight savings time mode (presumably because of the recent act of Congress that boogered the whole thing up), but with that done, it works fine.
During training, I happened to meet someone with the same last name as mine: one Stephen Meadows. He's probably distantly related to me; I've passed my Dad his father and grandfather's name to see if Dad can locate him on the genealogical family tree data he has somewhere.
I'm mildly concerned, now that I think about it, over what could appear to be a conflict of interest. As I write for TeleRead, occasionally a story will come up mentioning the retailer whose online division I'm going to be subcontracting work for. I don't think it necessarily has to be a conflict of interest if I recuse myself from covering any of those stories while I'm working for the call center—but will the call center see it that way? Would the company, if they egosurfed onto my announcement recusing myself from stories covering them?
I wonder if I should bring it up tomorrow. On the one hand, I worry about whether it could get me fired. On the other, if I don't mention it and they find out about it later and think it's a bad thing that I didn't tell them…
To my disappointment, even though I'm going to be doing phone support for an on-line division of a well-known big-box retailer, I don't get an employee discount at that retailer because it's subcontract work—I'm not actually working "for" them, I'm working for the call center. (You'd think they'd want to do everything they could to attach the subcontractors to their corporate culture. Oh well.) However, I do get a number of fairly decent discounts with other companies, including AT&T (15% off wireless service—that will certainly help if and when I get an iPhone!). And 10% off at St. George's Barbecue—yum!
I went ahead and set up direct deposit (patting myself on the back for having the forethought to stick a blank check in my wallet just in case they needed it—turned out they didn't, but it came in handy for getting the account and routing numbers) and filled out my W2. I decided to take zero deductions, given my extra income from TeleRead and a medical study I did this year (and others I may yet do later, if my schedule permits). I'll probably end up owing taxes anyway, but at least this way it won't be as much.
Internet access from the call center's Internet breakrooms is a bit more limited than I'd like. They use locked-down Ubuntu machines, which means no ssh or VNC access; they also block access to Twitter and Facebook (though not Seesmic, I found), saying something about checking digital security policies—which I did, and found nothing at all anywhere in them about social networking sites. Oh well. At least if I get an iPhone, I can use it to check those sites on my breaks—though I won't be able to keep it with me apart from then.
The call center has a remarkably strict policy concerning the use of gadgets, due to confidentiality factors. No cell phones on the call floor, period. I never realized how much I came to rely on my iPod Touch and my cell phone when I needed to find out what time it was—until I lost the one and was forbidden from carrying the other. (And to be fair, I'd be forbidden from carrying the one, too, even if I hadn't lost it.) And in a job like this, knowing the exact time is important as you're expected to be back from break exactly on time at the latest—and how punctual we are during training affects how likely we are to get the shift we want.
So after work today, I went out to Wal-Mart and bought my first watch in, well, years. It's a Casio Wave Captor (how can you go wrong with a watch whose name sounds like a Kamen Rider weapon?) that calibrates itself by radio from the atomic clock. And it only cost $30. (I could have gotten a calculator watch for $20, but those are so 1980s. :) I had to turn off auto-daylight savings time mode (presumably because of the recent act of Congress that boogered the whole thing up), but with that done, it works fine.
During training, I happened to meet someone with the same last name as mine: one Stephen Meadows. He's probably distantly related to me; I've passed my Dad his father and grandfather's name to see if Dad can locate him on the genealogical family tree data he has somewhere.
I'm mildly concerned, now that I think about it, over what could appear to be a conflict of interest. As I write for TeleRead, occasionally a story will come up mentioning the retailer whose online division I'm going to be subcontracting work for. I don't think it necessarily has to be a conflict of interest if I recuse myself from covering any of those stories while I'm working for the call center—but will the call center see it that way? Would the company, if they egosurfed onto my announcement recusing myself from stories covering them?
I wonder if I should bring it up tomorrow. On the one hand, I worry about whether it could get me fired. On the other, if I don't mention it and they find out about it later and think it's a bad thing that I didn't tell them…
