Today was my first day of work at JPL. Nearly all of the morning was spent in an interminable "orientation session" in a room whose temperature climbed continuously during the session. The experience was made tolerable by my striking up conversations with a few other people at the session. One of them is another hire from Rose whose name I have yet to learn (though he, of course, knows mine). Another was returning to JPL after spening the last two summers as an intern there. He was working on a project that is (according to the deputy director of the center) over-budget and late. In fact, the DD told this person that he was "screwed" when this person told him what project he was working on.



After the session, I met with my new 2nd tier boss. My 1st tier boss is going to be away for the next two weeks, unfortunately. My 3rd tier boss I have met before, but did not see today. I was told that I would be working on a cal-val system for the OSTM project. Since my 1st tier boss is gone for the next two weeks and the scientist in charge of this part of the project overall is out until the end of the week, I am in limbo for now. I'm likely going to use the time to get back up to speed with C programming (since I haven't programmed in C since Graphics last Fall).



I think JPL will be a very different experience for me. During my first year, I am supposed to come up with a plan to use half my time for "training." I'm going to use some of this time to get more familiar with C++ (despite the ugly thing that it seems to be). I don't have a firm idea of what I'll spend the other ~48 weeks training to do, though, so any ideas would be appreciated. Also, since I am a on salary, I can make my own hours. For now, I'll try to keep an 8 to 5 schedule, but part of me wants to try the noon to 9 approach.



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