Thursday, July 3, 2025

Reflections a few days into a new job

 I'm at the start of day four, and it's been a lot of fun & full on so far. Any time you are onboarding, meeting a bunch of new people, and just figuring things out, it's intense.

  • I'm liking all of the social connections
  • I'm going to have to work hard to get in physical activity/steps
  • I need to meal prep easy breakfast/lunch options, especially in the beginning
  • I have a ton of on-boarding meetings to meet new people. It's a big & very matrixed organization, so I think have about 50+ intro meetings over the next month or so! It's a lot.
  • Learning how to use new tech is..not my favorite. ;-) I'm still struggling how to set up my computer so I can easily find everything I need. That's been a bit of a journey.
  • I most certainly need to find a new workout schedule. I'm fine with it being ad hoc for a few weeks, as my schedule evens out a bit.
  • TONS of early morning calls, although much fewer evening calls! The majority of the folks I'll engage with regularly are split between London & the bay area, which means my day is very front loaded with early morning meetings.  I'd much rather have this schedule than the one my London based manager has - late calls in her time zone. My energy levels drop drastically later in the day, which is part of why I work out first thing after waking up. Calls in the evening are terrible on my energy levels. So, if I had to choose one time zone flex, it would definitely be London vs Tokyo. 
  • I'll really have to manage my own schedule, to carve out time to eat, go for a walk, etc, because it is way too easy to do back to back meetings for six hours & not have a moment to grab food. The first few weeks are super tricky with all of the on-boarding meetings, but I'm pretty good at calendar management in general.
  • Going from having total schedule flexibility has been an adjustment, and I'm generally really tired at the end of the day! So happy I joined on a four day work week.
  • There's lots of time off in this role, which is so awesome! 
I really think I'm going to enjoy the group of people, the team & the culture. The work feels pretty familiar to what I've done before, but with enough new twists & business challenges to keep it interesting. And, I really like my boss & think we will get on great. 

On a funny note, I've mentioned my role is pretty niche, which also applies to some of the roles of the folks on my team. I went into my first meeting with one of my team members, and he had previously worked with my direct report on my old team at my last job. Such a small world! 

If you have easy lunch or breakfast options that can be prepped in advance, please share!

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