Sydney Day 2 Part 2: Return of the Boogaloo
Next the other grad from the department I will be working in came up and said hello to me, this guy is from QLD, is my age and is generally a good bloke. I'm glad I'm starting with this guy as we have a little bit in common and he wasn't instantly sizing me up as competition. We then ran into our "grad boss" so to speak, she was pretty friendly and was pleased that I was already looking for places in Sydney (she had got a call from a real estate agent already!). After a short chat we were all ushered into a really really nice looking conference room with amazing views and told what was going to happen for the rest of the day, the first thing off the list was a speech from some high up woman at the corporation. She told us a pretty amazing story of her career and how she had a child when she was 17 and was kicked out of her private high school and disowned by her parents, she then came and worked at this place doing a pretty menial job while she was trying to finish high school and bring up her child, she then left and worked for a small computer business (which ended up becoming very big) and then completed a degree, after that she went on to work for some major international consulting companies and places like Microsoft and then after about 25 years ended back at the company she started at. Her story was really inspiring and I hope I get to run into her again to get some gaps filled in on that story!
Anyway after that and a few icebreaker "games" we started playing this very elaborate game which I won't even go into as it honestly took the guy 30 to 40 minutes to explain how to play, it was a lot of fun in the end although me and my partner almost came last :) Which for some reason he was really concerned about! I also met one of astro's old workmates during the game which was took me by complete surprise! She seemed lovely and hopefully I'll run into her again soon, be nice if we actually got to know more than a handful of people in Sydney.
After that was a pretty lavish BBQ lunch, I was starving since I hadn't eaten anything all morning so I stuffed myself, I sat down with a few new people and listened to their stories, they had no idea what to expect from their graduate job and I didn't really either! Next up was a Q & A panel with graduates who were completing their grad program, some of what they said was pretty interesting but most of it I had already figured out from months and months of intense Internet research :P They all really seemed to have enjoyed what they had done and have no regrets, although two of them couldn't figure out how to use a microphone properly, when they spoke nobody could hear them, lucky I was seated right up the front.
After this just we all got separated to hang with our department head(s), me and other grad guy went downstairs and grabbed a coffee/water and waited for our grad lady to show up, when she got there she went through what our first rotations would be, grad guy got to go into a division that is dealing with user interface design for some institutional product they are making and I got a role within the online department doing analysis on how to make their consumer and institutional website better. Hmmm they both sound a little bland when I tell them without giving anything away! Rest assured that I am actually pretty happy with what I'll be doing, it should be interesting, relevant and something that will actually be used. Grad guy and I were both sitting there later saying that we wished we got each others roles, probably because they were outside of what we had done before, throughout the rest of the year I get three more rotations in different areas of the division so that should prove to be pretty interesting.
Ok it is nearly time to go to astros works critsmas partay, the last installment will come later!
Anyway after that and a few icebreaker "games" we started playing this very elaborate game which I won't even go into as it honestly took the guy 30 to 40 minutes to explain how to play, it was a lot of fun in the end although me and my partner almost came last :) Which for some reason he was really concerned about! I also met one of astro's old workmates during the game which was took me by complete surprise! She seemed lovely and hopefully I'll run into her again soon, be nice if we actually got to know more than a handful of people in Sydney.
After that was a pretty lavish BBQ lunch, I was starving since I hadn't eaten anything all morning so I stuffed myself, I sat down with a few new people and listened to their stories, they had no idea what to expect from their graduate job and I didn't really either! Next up was a Q & A panel with graduates who were completing their grad program, some of what they said was pretty interesting but most of it I had already figured out from months and months of intense Internet research :P They all really seemed to have enjoyed what they had done and have no regrets, although two of them couldn't figure out how to use a microphone properly, when they spoke nobody could hear them, lucky I was seated right up the front.
After this just we all got separated to hang with our department head(s), me and other grad guy went downstairs and grabbed a coffee/water and waited for our grad lady to show up, when she got there she went through what our first rotations would be, grad guy got to go into a division that is dealing with user interface design for some institutional product they are making and I got a role within the online department doing analysis on how to make their consumer and institutional website better. Hmmm they both sound a little bland when I tell them without giving anything away! Rest assured that I am actually pretty happy with what I'll be doing, it should be interesting, relevant and something that will actually be used. Grad guy and I were both sitting there later saying that we wished we got each others roles, probably because they were outside of what we had done before, throughout the rest of the year I get three more rotations in different areas of the division so that should prove to be pretty interesting.
Ok it is nearly time to go to astros works critsmas partay, the last installment will come later!
posted by serp at 6:21 PM
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