First Day of Work

Today was my first day of work!  This assignment should definitely be a stretch for me, as I will be working on cost management and potentially tax (insert grimace here) issues, both of which are much closer to the finance function than I usually care to get.  I'm excited for the challenge!

We went out for lunch today, which was lovely.  All of my new coworkers are very nice.  They were talking about all this American TV...Seinfeld, Mad Men, 24...and it wasn't even me who brought it up!  The office seems very different in a few ways - kind of like a time warp.  For example, every woman I met today is an administrative assistant (there may be one exception, but I'm not quite sure yet).  Further, all the men (plus me) were wearing suits, but not one of the women was.  My first thought was that this is great, and if women don't wear suits I don't have to either.  Then, the indignant screw-the-girls-I-am-just-as-good-as-the-boys Kristen you all know and love (or at least tolerate) kicked in, and I decided that I am going to wear suits like the men, and make darn sure I'm not mistaken for one of their secretaries!  Secondly, when I arrived at lunch my coworker poured me a glass of wine from the bottle they had purchased.  My first instinct was to stop him since it's the middle of the work day, but who am I to reject their culture???

On the plus side, we have actual dishes and a dishwasher in the kitchen, beautiful views, and lots of snacks.  Tradition in the office is that you bring in a cake on your own birthday.  At first it seems unfair, but the real implication is that the 300 people in the office mean there is cake almost every day!  Seriously...pie...ale...cake...I'm in big trouble.

I'm going to dinner tonight with a group of coworkers who are here from Boston for a couple of weeks.  Don't worry - I'm not avoiding assimilating, but I'm also not in a position to be turning down social plans on the premise that they're not British :)