Interesting first day

I spent most of the day just meeting people. First HR (new hire introduction, mostly paperwork and explanation of benefits), then people in my new organisation. A lot of faces, a lot of names. I can only remember a few.

My new manager invited me out for lunch. There were five of us; me, him, two more of his direct reports, and someone else whose role is still unclear to me. The invite was pitched as a once-off welcome lunch for me, but I believe that this clique regularly go off-site for lunch. It was pretty clear that they were testing, judging me.

I think I did ok. I might have been too cautious, hard to tell. I cracked enough jokes, but not too many. I asked enough questions to learn a little about the organisation, but I backed off when I sensed that I was getting into touchy territory.

One of my new peers, let's call him G.B., kept trying to get me to lose my cool. Trying to probe hard into my background, trying to provoke me on a personal level, trying to bait me into loaded discussions. I played the game for a little bit, and then put my foot down hard.

G.B. is the type of person who thinks that he can fool others into believeing that he's hard, that he's smart. His greatest fear is that someone will see through his facade. He won't be a problem. The others though? I don't know yet. Time will tell.

Otherwise, not much interesting happened. Towards the end of the day, I finally had a few minutes for myself in my new office. It's not big. I don't have a secretary. I don't have a window. But I do have a job again. Feels good.