My first day at work was a pretty slow one. After meeting my local co-ordinator I was sent by her secretary down to the 4th floor over at HR. I was given some forms to fill out and the next step was to open up a bank account here in Malaysia so I can receive my allowance.
After these formalities I went back up to the floor I work, the 18th and there I got a desk assigned. I was scared a bit at first, as they still have cubicles here. Little desks with big walls around them. Great for focussing but not very social. Luckily the desk I got is not as worse as most of the cubicles here in the office. Everyone is very friendly and doing their best in showing me the way around and helping me out. Sometimes the friendliness makes me a bit shy as how helpful they are. I almost feel a burden and sometimes the friendliness becomes a bit silly when they want to explain to me how the simplest things work, yes, I know how an elevator works.
Still I am very glad that everyone is so welcoming. Soon enough after I sat down at my desk I received a large box from the Australian office with my work laptop.
It was an older Mac, but still in perfect working order and doing a great job. The first issue was that the electricity plug on the laptop didn't match the sockets in Malaysia. After I resolved this by buying a converter at the market down the street (it sparks and spews fire but it works) I was quickly introduced with a new problem: Mac laptops are not very welcomed on the network. Security only allow for Internet Explorer to access the web and anything else is being blocked. The rest of the day I worked on fixing this. But by 5 it still did not work so one of the IT guys hauled it away and hopefully he will return it soon in working order. It is all a part of working in a pretty old building in an Asian country. An Asian country means trust issues, means extra tight security and filtering and an old office means, older technology which means it is a bit more blunt in blocking.
After these formalities I went back up to the floor I work, the 18th and there I got a desk assigned. I was scared a bit at first, as they still have cubicles here. Little desks with big walls around them. Great for focussing but not very social. Luckily the desk I got is not as worse as most of the cubicles here in the office. Everyone is very friendly and doing their best in showing me the way around and helping me out. Sometimes the friendliness makes me a bit shy as how helpful they are. I almost feel a burden and sometimes the friendliness becomes a bit silly when they want to explain to me how the simplest things work, yes, I know how an elevator works.
Still I am very glad that everyone is so welcoming. Soon enough after I sat down at my desk I received a large box from the Australian office with my work laptop.
It was an older Mac, but still in perfect working order and doing a great job. The first issue was that the electricity plug on the laptop didn't match the sockets in Malaysia. After I resolved this by buying a converter at the market down the street (it sparks and spews fire but it works) I was quickly introduced with a new problem: Mac laptops are not very welcomed on the network. Security only allow for Internet Explorer to access the web and anything else is being blocked. The rest of the day I worked on fixing this. But by 5 it still did not work so one of the IT guys hauled it away and hopefully he will return it soon in working order. It is all a part of working in a pretty old building in an Asian country. An Asian country means trust issues, means extra tight security and filtering and an old office means, older technology which means it is a bit more blunt in blocking.