I enjoyed my first week at Red Hat. Sunday I flew down to Raleigh, NC to attend orientation on Monday and Tuesday. I was really impressed how in-depth the orientation went. It was more than filling out hiring papers and letting you know where the bathroom is. Red Hat really wants its new employees to understand what Red Hat is all about, how it got to be that way, and that all employees are part of the process. From open source licenses to their subscription model to the product line to the support organization, it was all explained (from about 20,000 feet).
Wednesday was my first day in the Minneapolis office which is located just north of the river on Hennepin Ave (at Riverplace if you're familiar with the area). The first thing I did was configure my workstation so I could log in and get my email. After that I started learning the ropes, console servers, the SAN, clusters, the test drivers, etc. That kept me busy enough that I waited until Saturday to get Fedora Core and IceWM installed on my workstation.
Nate I am so happy that you enjoyed going to work it is something that I have hoped for you. Of course you know half of that message will have to be translated at a later time. Love you and am excited for you Peg
Hey Nate, congrats on the new job. Glad it's working out for you. I went through a very similar experience with Raytheon--round after round of layoffs and no work to do. Coming to BAE was a great move for me and I hope your transition to Red Hat goes just as well.
I'm a little envious of you being able to configure your workstation, though. It's one of the downsides of working for a defense contractor; they like to lock everything down. About the only thing I can configure is the background wallpaper = )
Later,
AC