So week 1....
The new job is pretty fantastic... so far, but then what job isn't good its first week?
My favorite thing, free coffee that is actually decent! They got this crazy coffee packet system where you pick your coffee, Sumatra, French Roast, Columbian, French Vanilla... all the way to teas and chais, so you stick it in this machine press a button and BOOOM, coffee. And its not crappy, it actually tastes pretty fantastic. Some co-workers of mine asked me to go out for coffee and being new and needing to make connections I obliged... though as we were ordering at the Caribou Coffee counter I thought to myself, "Why am I paying for this stuff when its upstairs for free?" Granted I got a caramel mocha, which we don't have upstairs.
Also...all you can drink Coca Cola products.... free, how cool is that? It’s a good thing I usually limit myself to a diet coke a day otherwise I'd be drinking it constantly.
I work downtown in the heart of the beast of Atlanta. It’s in the Marriot Towers pretty high up. The job is intense, like no other job I've worked. I don't really have a supervisor and its all about projects, which is totally different than CIGNA. At Cigna I had a book of business I worked on, at Deloitte I could be working on tons of projects all year long that are all totally different. A lot more is expected from the workers than I think CIGNA expects out of its employees, not to sound snooty but the pace and workload is a lot more.
I also seem to be the only worker with my kind of experience. There's a friend of mine who has a similar background from an insurance perspective but he did more contracting and is in a totally different area than I am. So that being said I think I have the potential to do really well there, hopefully I won't fall flat on my face.
But I enjoy it; I got a snazzy laptop that really I haven't used out of the office since my grandparents in law (who I'm staying with in ATL till our house sells and we can move down there) don't have internet. If they did I could work some from home but so far I don't have tons of work, mostly just online training.
Parking's not a huge problem, I thought it would be but most of the lots downtown are pretty cheap, 6 bucks a day and 80 bucks a month or so. Then the garages are about the same, and if I ever get a nice car I'll put it in one.
The sentra... well it’s made it this far, but I really am surprised. I'd go get a new car tomorrow but I really don't want one till I can put it in a garage, which at my grandparents in law I can't do. That and really to be frank I can't afford one.
Traffic? Not bad really at all. I mean you just gotta realize, it’s going to take you a bit of time to get home. The inlaws live up 85 off of Clairmont so its pretty close to downtown. When we move down we'll probably live in Smyrna/Mableton which I've talked to a lot of people I work with that live around there and they say the commute is 25 to 30 minutes if you go at good times, which I usually do. The worst part of traffic is my car, the sentra is a stick and its generally awful to drive a stick in Atlanta traffic.
Driving home last night I experienced the worst traffic and where was it? In freakin Ft Oglethorpe... that place was bumper to bumper and all those stinkin lights are timed terribly. I ended up turning around and going back to the highway because it took me 30 minutes to get from the highway to Lowes and it was evident that I wasn't going to get home in the next hour if I continued on highway 2. I thought taking highway 2 in would be quicker during rush hour but apparently Ft O is the new place to be around 6PM. It was a nightmare and that city needs to do some serious development as the side roads that run parallel to highway 2 are either not accessible at most points of the drive or don't exist. I tried to access Cloud Springs and took a left at the walmart(this was when I was going back towards the highway)... but this took me to a storage facility, it was rediculous. I was so mad last night, I was like, “Of course I make great time until I make it to po dunk Ft O…. Atlanta the biggest city in the South East I get through fine, but Ft O…”
The worst part of being down in ATL is being away from wifey and AK. That actually has been really tough but hopefully the house will sell soon so we can move down and be one family in one place. Also not having a place to run as its too cold and dark to run outside. When we move I'll probably spring for a treadmill. We thought about a gym membership but I know I'd rarely go, and the last thing I'm going to want to do is drive through ATL traffic, get home, and then go back out to workout. But that's far down the road, we need to move first.
Speaking of the Fam, AK is crawling around now and getting into all sorts of trouble, thus making wifey's life all the more difficult while I'm away. She is so adorable and if my digital camera worked I'd post a picture but its dead, officially. I put new batteries in and it still doesn't work. I'll probably get a new one after Christmas.. which was when I got this one. But we'll see, its not a huge priority. Baby crying, gotta run.