It wasn’t until the custodian entered our office yesterday afternoon and began emptying people’s trash cans that I realized I don’t have one. I don’t have a phone or a computer yet, either. It’s the government, and I will be patient. The current contents of my cubical consist of two laptops (neither of which I can access), training CDs from 2001-2003, a pad of post-it notes, a mouse pad with either coffee or blood stains on it, and two sunflower seeds. All the cabinets in my cubical have locks, and I have keys to them. I locked the mouse pad and the two sunflower seeds into one of the cabinets.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been “that guy” — the guy who’s not quite sure of his surroundings yet. With no computer and no phone there’s not much I can do at the moment. I want to seem interested without being a pest. I’m trying hard not to appear bored. Yesterday I brought my netbook with me. I can’t plug it in to the network, but I brought some related eBooks with me to read regarding Nessus, Vulnerability Scanning and Penetration Testing. Tuesday passed a little more quickly. I’m terrible with names, but I recognized a few more faces yesterday.
I am really excited about this new position and I can’t wait to start making a difference.
We all know how exceptional you are and how talented. Things will rapidly improve I’m sure. Just relax and enjoy, and show ’em what you can do! (when you get the chance!!)
Blood stains? Did you get the name of who it is you’re replacing?
It is dark here. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
What does “Penetration Testing” involve? How do you get that job?
The same thing happens at small companies too. It is usually a situation where we really need the person, but we are so swamped that we don’t have time to get the person up to speed. Usually for the first couple of days (sometimes longer), I tell the new person to just surf the web and I will throw out tidbits of information as I think about it.
Organize a branch meeting a downtown hotel? ;)
Rob, you are exactly where I was when I started working for the government as a contractor back in December of 2007. I was a little better off. There was a Mac PowerBook (with the latest version of Leopard installed) available to me the first day. It was not connected to the network (and, since it was not using an approved OS – Leopard wasn’t company authorized until months later) it didn’t get connected to the network for a long time.
So what did I do that first day? I read – a lot. The office area had all sorts of books on computers: Programming Perl, Red Hat Linux, Samba, Solaris, Network Security and so on. I settled on the Perl book and started writing a Perl program on the PowerBook. When I wasn’t reading and programming I was spending time getting to know my officemates and other co-workers. Most importantly: I found out where the bathroom was located.
I got a Windows laptop the next day and I was able to connect to the network with it. However, since I didn’t get my account and password information yet (I got it that Wednesday), I could only go to internal sites that did not require a password. However, that was enough to help me figure out who to call to set up my phone and it also allowed me to order a brand new desktop computer for my desk (which I still have and it won’t get replaced – probably – until three years from now).
That was the week of December 18, 2007. The next week the place was shutdown and I got paid holiday. I didn’t report to work again until 1/3/08. Nice eh? During the week of January 3rd, I did a lot of required online training. Nevertheless, I don’t think I did any real productive work (i.e. billable hours) until a month after I started.
Long story short, I feel your pain. All I can say is take advantage of whatever resources you do have and make the best of them. It looks you’ve already done that with the training.
Penetration Testing!!
isnt that a requirment of anyone that works in an office enviroment?