First week at Google Cambridge

This past week was our first week at work in our actual offices!

Most of the week, for both of us, was spent learning. As with any new job there's a lot to learn, but especially here. There are so many things that are unique to Google that even if we had studied publicly-known material all summer we still wouldn't have been close to prepared. But that's okay, everyone expects you to spend a long time learning.

For me, on top of learning Google things, there's a lot of airline things to learn. Airlines are really complicated. Here's an article on airfare pricing: https://flightfox.com/tradecraft/how-do-airlines-set-prices --and that's just pricing, not even things like which airlines play nice with each other, or which seats are available at what times, or anything like that! Now, of course, the computer does all the hard work of calculation, but unless you know all the variables going in to the calculation working on the code doesn't make a lick of sense. And then there are the airline and airport abbreviations that everyone except me knows by heart. So for now when someone uses an acronym I write it down in my notebook to look up later and during the meeting I just make up a meaning for it that makes the meeting more entertaining.

My coworkers have been nice so far. One of my coworkers gave me a little lecture on Friday about a piece of technology and for his example he used pizza and its parts (pizza, pepperoni, etc.) so we're on the same wavelength :) I also did my first bugfix on Friday, so I can say I actually contributed something to Google overall!

The office is neat. It's really big, covering three buildings. We have a rooftop garden that's nice. Our coffeeshop brews the same kind of coffee Victoria (my sister) brews in Charleston so that makes me happy. My best friends so far are the receptionist, the barista, and the technical support intern, because all three have been lifesavers.

Every floor has a theme relating to a subway stop on the public transit here. My floor's theme is Wonderland, which was once a beach theme park. So on my floor we have a claw machine, photo booth, and fun house mirrors. Each floor also has a little kitchen with free snacks and drinks, and each kitchen has a special treat in it. My floor's special treat is ice cream. Patrick's floor is sailing themed and has gourmet coffee. Probably our favorite floor in our building is aquarium themed. I don't know what that kitchen has for its special treat but there is a really fun aquarium there that we like to look at.

The little things I appreciate:
- My desk can be sitting or standing
- It's not freezing cold like every other place I've ever worked
- I sit near windows looking over a grassy rooftop
- In the kitchen there's a sparkling water dispenser (has always been a treat for me)
- There's always fresh fruit
- Pretty much every day there's been a fish option for lunch
- Friday is pizza day

That's pretty much the story about work. Oh! Except we got paid on Friday. So that was really exciting, haha.

Tuesday we went back to Park Street Church to try out a different small group. We also visited there Sunday morning. We've met a lot of people there our age and have already become friends. Patrick played games with several of the guys on Thursday night. I met up with one of the ladies on Thursday and we've decided to do some one on one Bible study together. Last night, we had a few people over for dinner and games, and this week we're going over to one couple's house for dinner and meeting up with another couple at a pizza place. So they've been very kind and hospitable and we are so thankful. The only little snag is that it's a long commute from where we'll be living. It's really close to work so weeknight things are no problem but Sunday mornings would be a little tougher. So we're trying to figure out what to do about that, as we'd really prefer to be able to get to church using public transit. From Watertown it'd take over an hour on transit to get to Redemption Hill, so that's not seeming to be an option. From Watertown to Park Street is about 45-50 minutes. There are a couple churches less than a mile away from our future home that we think we'll check out once we move there, because that'd be convenient.

Yesterday we registered for Community Boating and took the sailboat rigging class. I can now rig a sailboat! (Patrick already knew how but had to take the class anyways.) Next is shore school, which we might tackle today or sometime this week, and then we'll be able to take out sailboats if we want.

The (only) grocery store near us is kind of fancy. Most notably it has more varieties of cheese than I knew existed. I got "everything bagel" flavored cheese, which was pretty tasty. I also bought some cauliflower that was naturally orange. It's a strange adjustment to make, not really needing to have food in the house. We keep cereal for the mornings, and I've been making dinner most nights, but we don't really need snacks or leftovers because work feeds us all day.

Otherwise it's been pretty low key. Not sure what we'll do this afternoon--maybe shore school, maybe Museum of Science, maybe some looking at furniture?

We miss you all. Start planning your visits!