Faithful Bear Feeders who go way back with me remember that selling y house in Kansas was nothing short of glacial.  I spent weeks working my tail off getting that house ready for sale, and then sunk tens of thousands into it just make it listable.  Then it stayed on the market for 9 months before it actually went for basically the same price I bought it for.

Well, my house in Alaska barely made it a month on the market.  Today I signed the papers accepting an offer and putting the great wheel of real estate to work to get that place off my mortgage.  Sure, I hoped that it would have went quicker, but in retrospect it sure did go quick like.

That, actually, sums up my first week here.

I have to say, it was my “quickest” first week of work that I can remember.  I am used to that first week being the most bone dry, drag out slow process one can go thru. I remember that first week at Cessna, when my boss spent nearly all of it laid up with the flu to the point I didn’t see him except for an hour the first week, spent just hoping that the end of the clock could move faster & I can not just feel I am burning company money waiting for work.  I remember the first week at BP being hours of online training, reading corporate policies, and waiting for projects to come my way.  This week, my first at Bodycote, zipped by like nothing.  But there was pretty good reason for that.

For one — I had something to do.  Not just the numbing corporate slide shows and box checking … real tasks.  Hell, I had a request to revise the quality manual (basically the bible of my function) before I even had a computer.  I’m not kidding, a guy dropped it in my lap, while we were opening boxes from IT.

The schedule had some to do with that.  I only had 4 days scheduled this week (I have to fly out to judge marching bands tomorrow).  But I was benifited by some understanding office personnel on Monday saying “take your time coming in” then, and the time it took for me to settle into this “work from home” thing.  For instance, I needed to fill out some HR paperwork this week – which meant printing and scanning that paperwork to e-mail to someone – which needs a printer and / or scanner – which means if you don’t have one you have to find one.  A hike down to a FedEx/Kinkos, an hour trying to figure out that place, a couple retrys once things get done and redone, and boom you blew an afternoon on something that usually takes a few minutes in an office.

Also the pup became comfortable with his routine quick like as well — now that he doesn’t have a back yard to dance around on whenever his daddy is most comfortable on couch, its a real task to get him out the door to do the business.  He now realizes he has to wait to get a harness on, walk down the hall, ride the elevator, get petted a couple times by people he meets, not get distracted by the homeless people, then find just the right piece of gravel to “make his own”.  Daddy’s little trooper keeps up the good work.

More next week of the life here – once I start living it a bit more.