Bummer Disclaimer: Looks like due to lack of time my blogging here will be limited to the weekends for the foreseeable future, my friends.

The new job's going really GREAT. I'm really excited about it. I wrote 4 stories already (!) and i think they're happy with me. The people in my group have been super-nice and very helpful in helping me to acclimate.

I work with mostly men (a novelty, but who's complaining?) in my particular group, which is Creative Services.

By taking backroads to work, i've cut my 60-minute commute down to 43 minutes, but i think i'll stick to the longer route at night and also in snowy weather, as those back roads get very slippery. Still, i'm thrilled to have another route that i should be driving exclusively once the days get a little longer.

There are so many differences between this company and my former employer. Size, for one. (new one has 300 employees in my location vs. 45 total for my old one, and just 4 in my old office).

My new employer is a much bigger company (offices elsewhere) with a great deal more resources than my old employer, which is evident in that they have the best of everything (everyone gets a laptop) and the benefits are superior in every way. We even have a completely paperless payroll system, so i got paid yesterday (I think) but don't know yet the software system to view my pay and deductions. Will call my bank to see if it's been deposited.

Another big difference...my old boss, much as i liked him and as much as he was a great human being who treated me well, well, he never was a good 'teacher.' Everything i learned during my 3.5 years there was hard-won knowledge, becus i was really on my own. Being isolated from our HQ meant i had no one else to turn to with questions or for vital background info, and my boss was just too busy and not inclined to spend much time on that. So that really hampered my learning curve. But that's one of the reasons he liked me so much, becus i could work independently.

At my new employer, it's not like that at all. There's been one guy in particular who has gone out of his way to help teach me various things on the computer, proprietary software and so on. I've learned more from him in one week than i learned from my old boss in a year. Seriously. What a world of difference. Makes me feel like i just woke up from a very long snooze (the guy in the fable, what's his name?) and found that everything's changed.

Been taking walks on my lunch hour for exercise, something i've been doing for more than 20 years, weather permitting. Unfortunately, there's really just a single option of where to go on foot. The whole area is very built up with large corporate offices and is quite congested, so driving anywhere is something i'd do with reluctance. There's the one very busy road i commute in on, but walking there would not be as relaxing as i'd like. So the other road is a back road sandwiched in between said busy road and an interstate type highway connector you can see through the trees. There's a short side road off that as well, with a number of condo complexes wedged in a very tight space. Doing just the 1 road round trip takes about 30 minutes, and i can stretch it out longer if i also did the condo street at the same time.

So, funny thing is, i'm getting just as much exercise as i did when i was walking to work in my hometown, 30 minutes or so.

In bad weather, there's always the stairwell. One woman in my group tells me she goes up and down the 4 flights daily. Seems a little dull to me, but in a pinch...

Our offices are so expansive that i'm finding i'm definitely getting more exercise just walking around there. At my former office, it was about 4 steps to the copy machine, 3 steps to the fax machine, 5 steps to our airplane-sized bathroom, etc. It was VERY small.

The new company won an architectural award for the design of the office space, which is ultra contemporary. There are NO private offices, not even for the top execs, and no cubicles, either. Everything is open, with the desks spaced probably 5 feet apart, but there are portable file cabinets that go with each work station which you can position as you like to form a type of square.

I was concerned about the noise level and my ability to write. It's not really too bad. A co-worker suggested that some people, when they need to concentrate on something, use earphones and an MP3 player, a great suggestion i think.

Truth be told, my old office of 4 people was noisier than this, as friends and neighbors of my boss who lived in town would often stop in to visit and just jabber away right in front of you. (No offices there, either.) The 2 people who worked upstairs would have to clop down the stairs daily to use the bathroom, the copy machine or the fax machine, and of course there was the daily parade of the mailman, FedEx man, DHL man and oh, let's not forget the UPS man, all of whom wanted to say hello and sometimes more. So writing in my old job was often a feat of concentration.

At the new job, there are plenty of small and large conference rooms for meetings or if you want to make a private phone call. The arrangement is supposed to encourage a collaborative atmosphere. All the work stations have all the computer and phone wiring going up to outlets in the ceilings, and they're wrapped with brightly colored wiring as part of the design statement. There are plenty of abstract type pieces of art adorning the walls, and i guess this art rotates periodically. My mother's art, which is also contemporary, would go quite well here; eventually i may inquire more about it. They hire another company who is in charge of doing the exhibits and procuring artists. Altho the work is simply loaned, i think, not purchased, and they don't even put the artist's name by the work, so it's hard to see what benefit it offers the artist.

My new work days end up being much longer when you factor in the commmute. Get up at 6:20 a.m., leave the house around 7:40 am and arrive by 8:30 a.m. Leave office between 5:30 and 6 p.m. and get home between 6:30 and 7 p.m., with barely time to catch the end of the evening news with Katie Couric.

The schedule is forcing me to be super-organized about my personal life and chores, as during the week there's not much time for anything. And i go to sleep early.