And it's been nothing if not interesting. I'm finding the journey a bit of a drag, it's about 25 minutes longer than the journey to UBS used to be, and while that's not much (ok, almost an hour a day so not insignificant I guess) it's more about the hassel of the additional part.

I started off by going to the interview and on the first day by walking, which from Liverpool Street to the office takes about 25 minutes. This first month however I decided to take some of the pressure off by getting my rail ticket with Zone 1 included, that way I get the choice of taking the bus or tube without worrying about it. I've also experimented with a couple of alternative walking routes. So far the walking wins (at least while the weather is good anyway).

The Number 100 bus took about 35 minutes (although most of this was being stuck in traffic at the back of St. Pauls Cathedral (So if I actually got off before then it would probably cut down my walking time a little) while the tube took about as long as walking does this morning, so at least that's an option in the cold & wet. There's other bus routes I can try (like the number 23 or 11 that got me back to the station in about 15 minutes tonight) but these routes tend to be super busy in the morning. So it looks like for the most part I'm going to be walking to and from work, but I'll get an Oyster card for those cold a rainy days, just for some flexibility.

As far as the job goes I'm still settling in at the moment. It's learning time and I've got at least three systems (one of which is written in C#) to get to grips with, so it's not going to be easy. I'll have to get back at a later date to report how I'm coping.

That's if the journey hasn't killed me first.

Well I've now done my first two days in the new job, and to be honest I wasn't impressed yesterday.

Having arrived at the induction at 8:30 the HR department themselves didn't arrive on time as the girl due to do the presentation was stuck on the train from Brighton. That's fair enough, but we were greeted by three other people from HR (who other than taking the documentation were doing precious little else) so why one of these couldn't have stood in is anyones guess...

So we started off with a decent enough presentation from security, an unfortunate necessity considering the current climate, followed by the expected dross from compliance (too basic for those of us that have already encountered such things, and probably too abstract for those in the audience who are new to such things, such is the necessity of the situation I guess).

Finally HR did their stint. Only they didn't really. HR didn't actually tell us anything of use, they just basically told the foreign workers to fill in the appropriate form, and then took us down to get our security passes and sent us on our way. There was no mention about what or when we were to complete out registrations online, how to credit cash to our security cards for meals, etc. in the canteen, how or what benefit and pension forms were required to be completed. All in all it was a total waste of time from them.

Rubbish.

So I got my pass (the photo on which makes me look like some kind of a mekon) and walked over to my new office. Things actually started off quite well, my new PC had arrived shorly before I did and after a few calls to the technical support line I was beginning to be set up. Inevitably not everything went according to plan, I have a UNIX login but no password, which despite my follow up emails is still conspicuous by its absence. Oh wel, there's always a problem, and it's certainly more organised than UBS were.

As for the job, it's really a little too early to comment. So far I'm trying to read throgh the documentation and make sense of the system, but that should hopefully improve as time goes on. Certainly some of it seems familiar from previous experience. But it's a whole new framework that I need to pick up, and that's where the difficulty will be.

Still, I did manage to meet up with Matt for a beer as he's only working down the road. So that's good.