(For the benefit of anyone who can't read the friends-locked entries, a summary of why I left the old one: Due to an interesting loophole, my old company does not have to follow Massachusetts state law on certain items relating to health insurance, specifically the coverage of IVF. To cut costs they had a lifetime cap on fertility treatment, a cap that I am now well over. So, my best option was to self-insure, to the tune of $1400 a month. Once that happened, staying was way less attractive in spite of the fact that I really liked the job and the people I was working with.)
I'm liking the new place a lot. I'm working with
twe, harrock, and treptoplax, so this is not a big surprise. Of course I'm not doing much at the moment except frantically trying to come up to speed, but its pretty interesting stuff. Maybe it will be less interesting later, but treptoplax seemed to figure out what was going wrong with our cable modem just by looking at the text output from tcpdump, so it will still be useful to know even when it is no longer shiny new knowledge.On Monday when I was describing the new work environment to
psychohist his response was, "Is this a bank or a weight loss clinic?" To understand this, you must understand that we frequently comment on the (usually adverse) impact that our work environments have on our weight. My old place had a fridge full of free soda in the kitchen, maybe twenty yards from my desk. There were also a vending machine full of junk food there. At the new place the only thing free at the kitchen is water. If I want anything with calories in it, I have to go around to the opposite side of the rather large building and down two floors. I am looking forward to the effects of all the help on the willpower front.Since I mention that the kitchen here only provided hot and cold water, I should mention that their hot water is hot. No more microwaving my tea mug. The dispenser even tells you what temperature the water is. This is a huge improvement over the hot water at the old place, which was dispensed very grudgingly by the coffee machine. My tea order from Adagio came on Wednesday, and I've been enjoying the hot water since.
The commute is not as bad as I feared. The drive is more stressful (through Boston on 93), but its actually a tad shorter distance-wise than the old one, and doesn't seem to take any longer. I'm also carpooling with
twe, which has been working well. I'm doing all the driving, since her house is mostly on the way for me, but its soothing to have someone to talk to while navigating the traffic.So, the new job is good. Lets just hope the next IVF cycle is good too.
Update: OK, so maybe it's not the perfect place when you want to lose a little weight. Half an hour after I posted this originally my new boss came in with a cake with "Welcome Aboard Elizabeth" on it. A very yummy cake, with chocolate covered strawberries on top. It was very sweet.
