Today was my first day of work, and what a day it was. I woke to a blanket of snow outside with more falling. Where did that come from? Really beautiful, but based on the snow removal efforts (or lack thereof) on streets and sidewalks, I'm thinking they don't get very much snow here. Or perhaps they're just not worried about people slipping and falling on sidewalks and suing the owner of the property as would be the case in the U.S. In any event, I love snow so I took it as a good omen.
A woman from the relocation company came by this morning, picked up my passport and some unsmiling photos of me we'd had taken during my apartment-hunting trip, and took them to obtain my official work permit. (The absence of a smile in the photos was a requirement, incidentally. It strikes me somewhat as being in keeping with the stern stereotype we may have of Germans, yet at the same time, it makes sense. I mean, most of us are probably walking around with really wretched passport photos. If we're honest, we probably look kind of like that after a long, sleepless night on an international flight when we show up to present our passports at immigration of whatever country might be willing to receive us. Similarly, if there's a migrant worker raid at the firm (I'm kidding!!), I'm guessing I wouldn't be smiling. So perhaps it's easier for the authorities to compare bad/unsmiling photos from the start?) Anyway, I was finally work-legal by noon and headed out to the office on the S-Bahn. We can ignore for now that I went to the Eschborn station and had to backtrack to the Eschborn-Süd station.
I arrived at the office in time to set my stuff down and head to lunch with Per (the other FIDS "partner" -- for lack of a better term since I'm not sure what I'm supposed to call myself over here) and a few others. While at lunch, our executive assistant, Sanja, got a call saying that my rental car had arrived and "the guy" was waiting in the lobby of the office for me to sign the paperwork and present my driver's license. Uhhh.... I had indeed requested the rental car, but hadn't received an official confirmation, so this was a bit of a surprise for me. So she and I went back to the office, I signed the paperwork, and the guy that had driven the car there from BMW asked if I could drop him off at the train station (that'd be Eschborn-Süd, for those who are following this). Recall that it's still snowing, the roads are slushy, I have no idea where I am, I've just signed some sort of contract in German, and this is a brand new BMW 3-series (well, she had 410 km on her). "Okay." So off we went.
This was part of the first few minutes of the most efficiency I have ever witnessed at the firm. Within 30 minutes, I signed for the car, drove the BMW dude to the train station, learned how to park in the (free!!!) underground EY garage, received a new (albeit gigantaur) laptop and a SecurID, was issued a security badge, got confirmation that my BlackBerry (alas, an 8800) is on order, and was back at my desk with a cup of espresso made from freshly ground beans in the office's cool coffee machines. The rest of the day paled by comparison as I tried to figure out how to type on the German keyboard layout with the Z and Y reversed and many other keys "out of place" as compared to the US QWERTY keyboard. All in good time, I suppose.
Bonnie (the 318d, who is a moody charcoal gray and comes complete with aggressive looking winter tires) and I waited until most of the traffic had died down before we attempted our trek back into the city. I was able to program in the address on the navigation system, but the trip was nevertheless challenging, mostly due to Bonnie's insistence on addressing me in German, my inability to estimate distances in meters, and the myriad one-way streets in Frankfurt. I'm pretty sure she was swearing me after about five missed turns. We did finally make it, though, and she's now tucked in down in the garage under the Liv'in. Alas, the grocery store was already closed. :-( But I think that was enough for a first day!
There were days when I thought to myself, if I hit the f'ing " key when I want to hit the @ key, I'm going to SCREAM! The really fun part is that I have my US desktop here with me, so I had to learn to switch back and forth. My brain never thought it would have to use that part.
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