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Canola, help desk hell and hanging with Mike and Larry

Work so far is going well. I cannot believe how large the Cargill corporate office is - I seriously got lost going to and from the bathroom. I got all messed up when I left our "pod" because I didn't look to see what the sign hanging from the ceiling said. I knew I sit in "Grain I/T", however when I got back from the restroom all I saw was a sign for "Canola". Go figure - guess Canola and Grain sit together.

I am in the middle of IT land with programmers abound. I get to share a "bullpen" (four desks in a common area with a table in the middle - the table is the home to 2 monitors, a bunch of cables and is surrounded by boxes full of more techie stuff) with Mike and Larry - both are rather interesting. Larry likes the NY Jets and Mike evidently likes Amish furniture. Those are the only things the two have talked about. Haven't quite figured out why Mike carries around a 1% milk jug full of water wherever he goes - haven't seen him drink the murky water - then again I don't think I want to see that. You know I will eventually ask what the is the purpose of carrying around a milk jug...

I am feeling a bit disconnected from the outside world since I can't get to my home email on the Internet - everything is blocked. Plus I messed up one of my 3,239 passwords to get into the Internet - I did decide after today's exercise in patience I AM NOT CALLING THE HELP DESK UNLESS MY LAPTOP STARTS ON FIRE. The help desk support is in India and it took the poor girl 17 minutes (14 minutes of which I was on hold) to figure out she couldn't help me anyway. We did spend most of the three minutes she actually conversed with me trying to figure out if one another was saying "e" or "c" in Schmidt. Let's just say it was painful.

Overall, it is going fine now that I know where the cafeteria, the bathroom and the parking garage are located.I am sure there will be more adventures to come, let's just say Cargill has definitely got their moneys worth out of me so far.

Comments

carey said…
take a camera and start filming. sounds like the whole set-up is ripe for prime time.
11:30 AM
Karen said…
Try as I might, I cannot get the picture of you in The Office out of my head. Which, btw, I love, and would have never watched if you hadn't blogged about it. My husband thinks it's "retarded," and doesn't understand that THAT is exactly why I love it.
12:47 PM
bobbione8y said…
anyone who doesn't love the office, has never WORKED in the office.

i bet all of susan's coworkers at cargill love that show :)

more stories, please, susan ;)
5:31 PM
Chris said…
Good! I am glad that you ar loving it.
2:58 PM
Anonymous said…
From a fellow Cargill employee, welcome to the "nohelp desk". I swore off calling the nohelp desk when it moved to India. I decided to resort to the one thing I have always avoided, "reading the instructions!". When that fails, I just decide I really didn't need that function anyway. Keep the Cargill stories coming, I can definately relate.
9:50 PM
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