Work the final frontier

Work the final frontier

Tomorrow starts orientation for a new job at my new place of residence. I am excited at the prospect of working at a new location where no one knows me.  The adventure began Friday during in processing.  I started the ball rolling I asked, "did you study for the test?" I asked the 1^st person to sit down in the waiting area. With this puzzled look, she responded, "what test" I replied, "you know the drug test." That broke the ice and the tension that I had and lightened the mood a bit.  The processing went like processing usually goes and pretty much as expected.  Set up the initial login establishing the initial password and signing all the appropriate documents. It was different as this is the first time that I have worked out of the Government system.  With me serving as a GI or a Civilian for 39 years.  There was no question if I was going to work or not. The question what it is going to be like after the move. It is new so new that I have no idea what it will be like to work outside the structured environment of the government.

I am looking forward to putting my best foot forward.  I have no friends here (yet) I am happy to be the tech at the end of row 4 in seat 3.

In my last situation, my mentor was on the interviewing board. Not that he did me any favors, but the process of getting this job was different. I published my resume' online and had a couple of zoom interviews, and I got hired. I had reservations as I was applying for a position as a desktop support technician, as I had no desire to work in system administration any longer. I prefer working with users directly.  I can be more of a help to a person than I can be looking over a system on which I have to rely on other offices doing their jobs for my job to operate smoothly. For example, the statement "The the system is down" is pretty vague.  It could be a networking problem, an interface problem, an issue that has its origins outside of the office, or a problem originating from the chair that sent the email. All these circumstances may or may not be within my span of control to fix. The user's point of contact is yours truly, and excuses or important reasons all sound the same from the user's perspective.  

I am looking to start fresh with a new perspective where no one knows me outside of the information I presented when I applied for the job. I am excited at the prospect. I am going put those lessons I have learned about being the best at one's job that I have learned over the years in this new environment. I had a reason for leaving my last position. Like my father used to say, "you have a good reason, but what is the real reason."  The real reason is I want to be in the lives of my grandsons that are in this area. With that accomplished, everything else is gravy. However, I want to test myself in this new environment to see what I can achieve.