Bucknell is not Pitt

I started work at Bucknell today. Very different from Pitt. For starters there are more squirrels than people. I kid you not. There's millions of the little buggers frolicking all over the place. I might be afraid if they weren't so darn cute. I saw one trying to climb up a building as if it were a tree. He didn't make it. Stupid squirrel.

They also have grass and trees everywhere. There even a little stream thing! WTF!?! An on campus stream? Crazy I tell ya! It was dead. (Campus that is, not the stream.) I couldn't believe the lack of people. It got a little busier on campus as the day went on (and people awoke from their alcohol induced comas) but nothing like good ole' U of P. I like having people around. Trees and squirrels are nice but activity and people are much more interesting. They also lack something that we have a lot of. Culture/diversity. Bucknell is all rich white kids. Ok, so not ALL of them are rich, a couple of them were lucky enough to get big scholarships. But back to my job.

I got there in plenty of time. Found a nice place to park in front of the union. I had looked at a map to see just where I was going. For starters I must not have read the map very well cause I ended up taking a 15 min walking tour of most of the campus. I finally find the building right as the clock ticks 8. I walk in and introduce myself. I'm asked if I have a parking pass. No. Shit! I forgot my vehicle registration! 10 minute hike back across campus to my truck. Got the registration. Went back. It was now starting to get warm. Walk back in to the office. I'm told to go register my vehicle. Walk to the public safety building... it's closed. Walk back to the office. Time to try to get my paperwork filled out. I asked if I was to go to the human resources building. They say yes. I go to the HR building and guess what... wrong building. I need to go to payroll. Walk to the top of the hill and find the right building. Walk all over it. Can't find the offices. End up in the mailroom and ask for directions. Wrong floor. Finally find payroll. They want a cancelled check to set up direct deposit. That's nice but I've never written a check for my PNC account. That's what they make check cards for. Luckily I had my little card from them with my routing number and the account number so they could get the info they needed. On to the W-4 form. I fill it out as I always have and turn it in. The woman tells me I can't claim no dependents and also be exempt. WTF?!? I meet the criteria for both so why don't I write them down. I mean they are separate questions on the form. After going back and forth with this woman she finally tell me what I wanted to know (i.e. what I CAN put down). Get that done and have to go find the registrar's office to get a photo ID made. It was just a few doors down so that was easy to find. Get that made. Have to trek all the way back to the office. Now to try to register my car again. It's all good. Then she asks for my Bucknell ID#... I don't have one. Yes you do she says. I kept trying to explain that I wasn't a Bucknell student and therefore didn't have one. Finally I find out that they'll assign me one through payroll so I just need my boss to email it to her. Get my parking permit and go back to the office once more. It's now 9am...

That was my first hour (or so) on the job. I definitely wasn't too optimistic after all that hassle. Then they give me my first assignment. I get to sit in a dirty wiring closet and physically follow wires from the switch to the patch panel. It was a mess in there. 5 switches needed done and each switch has 24 ports. Oh yeah, it sucked. Till I finished it was lunch time. I got home and didn't have much time left before I needed to be back so it looks like going home for lunch isn't gonna be very good option. I got back and Gene took me out and showed me how to install the wireless access points. He was asking me all sorts of questions about what I knew and telling me all sorts of things about why things were they way they were. I'll probably learn more from him in a week than I learned in telecomm and internet construction all year. He was kind of annoyed that I hadn't made perfect right angles with the wires... That's pretty darn anal if you ask me. After that they showed me how to do some various other jobs for the remainder of the day.

I found out something that kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. The rest of my crew starts over the course of the next 2 weeks. They brought me in a week early because none of the other guys have any experience. It sounds like I'm pretty much going to have to be a supervisor and that they want me to train these guys. I'll be making the same amount of money as them (very little). Also 2 of them are still in high school and 3 of the 4 are the sons of Bucknell employees. That means they may not even want to be there, they may have just gotten the job because of their parents pulling some strings so they'd have a job this summer. That would really suck so let's hope that isn't the case.

Hopefully this job gets better. It's not looking real good right now but maybe that'll change. It would certainly be nice if it did. I definitely need to bring my iPod tomorrow or else I might lose my mind if I get stuck in a wiring closet again.

After work I convinced the rents to go to Wendy's for dinner. A taco salad and a frosty really hit the spot. Good stuff.

This is really long and I need to be up early.

Hugs and hand-pounds everybody,

Eric