My First Day of Work (and the Stuff That Preceded It)

The only thing about my first day of work that was not awesome and hopeful was this.

But let me go back a bit, as I haven't written for while. The reason behind my writing hiatus was a rather busy schedule: six days of full-time training last week, preceded by a similarly busy week. I was going to write a cute little blog last week, highlighting some of the sources of busyness, but that busyness prevented me from writing. Had I written that post you would have heard tales of getting pampered by the local squash club trying to secure my membership, taking a tour of a local brewery (with a few obligatory free beers at the end), a Lord of the Rings game night, fighting through the frenzy of the local REI's Scratch and Dent sale to come out with some high quality winter wear for an 1/8th of the original retail price, and much much more. But wouldn't you know, I have other things to do today as well.

I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I've mostly been occupied with fun things. AND one can't claim to be too busy when one stays up 'til 1:30 am finishing a 1000-piece puzzle...

On to training! So, a few posts ago I mentioned that I got hired as a bike mechanic. Now I actually am a bike mechanic - technically a service technician. In order to attain this status, however, I first had to complete a rigorous week of training. What I did not realize when I was first applying for this job was that this bike shop is actually a large, local franchise. In 1977 the name sake of this franchise opened the original shop - as a 13-year old (!) - in his parent's barn. Since then it's grown to have 16 stores in 2 states. What this means for me is that this is the largest company/corporation/business/organization that I have ever worked for! This only struck me after I began my training and was hit with such novelties as: a full-time employee trainer, an HR guy, benefits, computer-managed inventory database... even a company mission statement.

Unfortunately, though I was hired as a mechanic at a store location very near to my house, training was at corporate headquarters - a solid 30-minute drive. And we were supposed to be there early. And to drive there I had to pass through the heart of the cities where traffic was sure to be an issue. The commute was a drag (especially in a freak morning snowstorm on Wednesday), but the actual training was pretty fun.

Brad ('B-Rad' as his name tag read) was our trainer. A middle-aged father of two he was extremely friendly and helpful. One got a sense from the rapid-fire lectures and explanations he would deliver that he was a fountain of mechanical knowledge - so steeped in his course material that he didn't know which helpful trick to show us next. And he would challenge us, sneakily loosening crucial bolts in attempt to hone our diagnosing ability or snipping a laboriously installed brake cable so that practice would make perfect. It was a rigorous training course, but I enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.

The rest of the folk we met at corporate were equally nice. Doug (the HR guy) introduced all of us new trainees to the large corporate family we had become a part of. I was a bit wary of the corporate mumbo jumbo, full of mission statements, employee improvement goals and the like, but as we learned more I became of the opinion that while I was now employed by a large corporate entity, at least it was a pretty nice entity. We had forms to fill out that helped our managers know how we best deal with criticism. They are of the belief that ALL employees are peers and back it up with their open door policy - giving every employee the ability to contact anyone the company (even the founder/CEO) with need for help. Their training policy is that any employee can request more training at any time and it will be honored. Not to mention, they have a pretty sweet employee discount policy (though only for bikes/items purchased for me - sorry bike-loving family and friends). Good stuff.

And just like that six days were over. I graduated basic training, received my 2 standard mechanic-blue shirts and walked out the door - only to walk in the door of my current workplace the very next day. And there I was met with friendly people, a very helpful service manager and a workbench and stand of my own, at which I began wrenching. I'm still fairly low on the totem pole of training (though I mean to soon change that) so most of the work I did yesterday was safety checks on outgoing new bikes sold, but it was a slow day and I'm sure I'll soon see plenty of interesting broken bike scenarios.

Oh yes... also, all the stores have satellite radio. The default station (which apparently no one changes, or is allowed to change) starts the day with some nice reggae and rock, yet in the afternoon it meandered into the realm of pop (like the song in the link above), one for which I don't much care. One small bone to pick. All in all I'd say I'm pretty lucky.