Monday, January 10, 2005

First Day at Work

The first day at the new job went very well. I was expecting to be extremely overwhelmed; instead, I am only somewhat overwhelmed.

It's going to take some time to get used to the new routine. Instead of a 20-25-minute drive to work, I'm now like Steve Martin & John Candy, taking a car, bus, Metro and walking a little. The total trip took about 50 minutes. My major project for this week will be learning to read a book while standing on the bus & Metro (and holding on to a bag). Any suggestions on how I can do this without losing my balance and knocking over 3 or 4 people?

1 comment:

John D said...

I'm certainly not an expert on the DC Metro, Sean... but I can tell you how I navigate the NYC subway. First, get *very* familiar with the train route and figure out which part of the train car you can stand in that requires the least amount of movement on your part (for example, I take an express train from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the doors on one side of the train don't open at all during the entire trip... standing in front of these doors makes good sense). Next, you're going to have to get yourself a bag that you don't mind putting on the floor. I know this sucks, I hate doing it too... but otherwise your shoulders are going to hurt before you're a few weeks into the job. Finally, if you're going to read while standing on the train, make sure that you are reading something that you can hold with one hand (small paperback). Note that this rules out nearly all newspapers. Nothing annoys your fellow commuters more than someone ruffling a huge newspaper in their faces.

That's just my two cents. *grin* Good luck with the new commute and congratulations on the new job! Cheers!