What I Did and Learned In My First Week

As noted in my last post, I officially left the unemployment rolls this week. So what have I accomplished and/or learned in my first five days as a technical writer?

1. No technical writing. Heavens, no.
   
2. I've learned to keep a timesheet, more or less. The legacy software which is their current product has, I don't know, maybe 50 or 60 project codes assigned to it, most of which are relevant only to developers and support personnel. So far I think I have identified two that might encompass anything I would be doing. Although they might make up a few new codes.
3. Time is recorded in tenths of an hour. Not exactly unfamiliar to me, considering that Cornell University used tenths of an hour. However, while at Cornell time was rounded up or down to the nearest tenth, my new employer rounds everything up: 30 minutes is 0.5 hour, while 31 minutes is 0.6 hour. One difference between a non-profit academic institution and a business that bills time to clients.
   
4. You can sort your contact list in ICQLite (an apparently undocumented feature which I stumbled on inadvertently), but the sort doesn't "stick". Every time someone in your list logs on, they appear on the top of the list.
5. The nearest 7-11 and Burger King are about a mile from the office.
   
6. The Help Files for Microsoft HTML Help Workshop (which may or may not be what we use ultimately for documentation) could be a lot more helpful than they are.
7. Eudora is a lot easier to use than Outlook Mail.
   
8. The documentation for the company's aging software suite makes the IRS tax code look like "See Ted run." This stuff runs on a VAX/VMS mainframe with a VT100 (I think) terminal emulator for a "user interface". It has dozens of modules, each with its very own installation guides, customization instructions, and user manuals, which appear to have been last updated around 2000. Each documentation file is labelled with a cryptic acronym like PDS or XAPO. And the "help system" software that houses this mess has, as far as I can tell, no overall table of contents. This, my friends, is my first assignment: proof, edit, and revise the content, and put it into some new format, yet to be determined, which will be slightly more user-friendly. I judge that this could conceivably keep me busy through retirement age.
9. Community toaster ovens can be pretty vile.
10. Say what you will about my old employer (The Company), their Aeron chairs were pure heaven compared to what I'm sitting in at the new place. I'm supposed to be getting a chair upgrade next week. Can't be a moment too soon.
11. Two-button mice are unnatural.
12. Next week there is a "group outing" scheduled. No, they're not planning to expose a whole bunch of people as gay. We're apparently all going to leave early on Wednesday and go to Busch Gardens. I'm sure glad I got a summer passport.
13. Six months of unemployment "leisure" sure does make it tough to go back to work. These have been the longest 8-hour work-days of my entire career.
14. I can't wait for the 15th of the month, when I get my first paycheck.