Our First Day!

Today, my friends, was a success.  The morning went smoothly, all three of us were ready to go on time, I remembered everything that the kids were supposed to have at daycare...it was great.  Well, it was great until I actually had to leave the babies at daycare.  Khloe was excited to see other kids.  She sat on the couch with Jose and bounced up and down, smiling the whole time.  Kaden broke down and clung to my leg in tears.  I felt horrible leaving my sweet boy, but I knew he was in good hands.  The other kids came up to him and introduced themselves and told him that they were happy and that they wanted him to play with them.  They were all very sweet.

Here's my happy girl!

And here's my baby boy, stuck on my leg instead

of sitting with his sister for a picture.

I finally tore myself away from Kaden's pleading sobs with Khloe happily waving bye-bye to me.

My first day of work went pretty well, except that I had a horrible headache all day from reading and staring at PowerPoint presentations.  My supervisor is awesome - she also has two kids, a boy and a girl, and she's a Diet Dr Pepper fan.  All the people I trained with and met were really nice.  My whole day was basically just filling out paperwork and learning all about company policies, safety, and perks. Speaking of perks, this job comes with lots of them.  Here's a list I'll call:

10 Sweet Things About My New Job:

1.  My insurance pays 90/10 and it's only like $140/month for me and both kids.

2.  I get life insurance, dental, vision, accidental death and dismemberment, and a 401K.

3.  If I put 6% of my paycheck into my 401K each month, the company will match that.

4.  Since the mother company is in Denmark and they want us to feel like we're all part of the same     family, we get cool European perks, like 12 paid holidays each year and an exercise room.

5.  I can pick my hours and change them pretty much whenever I want to in order to better accommodate my needs.

6.  If I need something for my workspace, I can just order it.

7.  I can carry my cell phone all day long if I want to.

8.  Someone makes photocopies of the two crosswords in the paper every morning and leaves them on the tables in the lunchroom for our word-gaming pleasure.

9.  It's really clean.

10.  I can wear comfy shoes.

They also gave me quality schwag - no pens or keychains for these employees!

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a cell-phone-in-the-mirror picture, which I despise, but look at my comfy new sweatshirt.  The inside of the hood is really cute plaid, too.  I got a stainless steel water bottle, too, but Kaden absconded with that as soon as he saw it.

And, as promised, the conclusion to the Shoe Dilemma:

I wore my everyday, worn-out Keens with my nice work clothes.  No one said a word, and when I asked my supervisor about "building-dedicated shoes", she said I wouldn't be in areas where I'd need them frequently enough to worry about it.  She said to wear whatever shoes I want.  I think I'll get a new pair after my first paycheck - I've about walked the bottoms off of these shoes.

Toward the end of the day, I had time scheduled specifically for reading a bunch of SOPs, which sounded dreadfully dull.  One of the Development Engineers that I interviewed with stopped by my cubicle and asked if I'd rather go help him with an experiment.  Of course I jumped at the chance, so I went with him for about an hour.  I'm not sure what details I can and can't give about the research at ALK, but I'd rather err on the side of secrecy.  I don't think it would be crossing any lines to say that it's an experiment to further purify one of the pollens we're working with, and that I thought it was very fun.

I'm not entirely sure what my job is yet, which sounds weird, but really, the description I read was one thing, and what people kept telling me today was another, so I think I'm going to be doing mostly technical write-ups for the experiments that are currently underway, and assisting as needed.  I met the QC (quality control) girls today and they're like microbiology chicks, so now I see why I was asked during my interview if I had ever thought about working in QC.  That's another nice thing about this company though...I can move up or even side to side if I feel like I would be a good fit for a job in a different area.  I really think I'm going to like working for this place.

And for those of you worried about my darling little boy, he calmed down after I left and had a great day.  He loved going to "school" with his little class, and they learned about colors today.  He proudly brought me this when I picked him up:

He also showed me his classroom and the cubby where he hangs his coat and leaves his boots.  They said it takes most kids about a week to adjust to the routine, but that Kaden and Khloe were fine and are both very good kids.  Yay for a decent first day!