Although I have used Git for a few years now, I am by no means a power user. Just learned that you can make your own Git commands to save time for repeated tasks. Not sure why I never thought to look this up before. Google it or look here for more info on how to do it for yourself.

I have a great chair and awesome desk, but nevertheless, day 4 finds me dealing with significant back pain. Is it that I’m sitting so much? Sitting in a more of an upright position then I’m used to? I will vow to move around more, but I need to try something new. Since I’m pretty comfortable sitting when I’m slightly reclined back, I looked for a foot rest that would elevate my feet a bit with the hopes that it will rock me back a little. Ordered this product from Amazon - hopefully it will help, even if just a tiny bit.

Although I’m still in the midst of independent training, I’m listening in on my teammates’ conversations about their tasks. I learned that work for our team comes from three major sources: 1) bug fixes from either internal engineers or directly from customers, 2) design change requests from other internal engineers, or 3) from us deciding to do some cleaning up and refactoring. I’m excited to work on all three task types!

Today saw more of me chasing down errors out of my control, but I’m getting better about not wasting too much time before asking.

There are about 100 people in my office - some engineers, some project managers, and a handful of people in other types of roles. And let’s not forget the summer interns! Quite a few of them are from TJHSST where I last worked, so either I was their computer science teacher, or I probably either worked with their teacher or know of his/her reputation. Not sure how this started, but I started playing the Bet-I-Know-Your-CS-Teacher game with the non-TJ employees. What a hoot! I’ve only asked 7 folks so far, but if they took CS in high school, I do in fact know their CS teacher even if they are from states far away! This was a fun way to break the ice and get people to smile wide. Then I took it one step forever and sent a photo of me and my new co-worker to their CS teacher to then see if the teacher remembered their student. Even more fun! Can’t wait to keep playing this week. CS teacher friends - it may just be your turn next!

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.Dale Carnegie

In addition to making new friends around the office, the walls came down a bit between me and my two nearest teammates. Good conversation, some great bonding, and a feeling like we are all in this together. I think I got lucky with this group.

hours of sleep = 8;  steps = 5,000;  lines of code written = 0;