It's Wednesday, got up early to do paperwork with staffing agency, and then have lunch with people from the company I'll be working at. In between, I had about an hour, so I went to Half Price, got a few books and cheap movies (Sonny Chiba + Brian Lumley for the win), then went to the office. Had a little trouble figuring out where the entrance was, but since I tend to be early, it worked out.

They took me to lunch at Firehouse Subs, which was pretty tasty. I asked a few questions, figured out that my start date 'should' be next Tuesday, but that depends on the background check. Hours will be 8:30 to 5:00, I get to be the early guy. Since I'm contract, I won't be expected to work from home or outside of 6 to 6, which is a plus, but will be very weird. Since I'm contract, I'm hourly...OT included, so they don't want to have to pay OT rates if they don't have to. We'll see what this means in the practicals. No VPN access, so they're serious about the no working from home, which is a plus. I'll be able to put work down and leave it down.

Came back to the office, got the tour. And I got a very good feeling about the company. Decorated cubicles, the dev section had a plush camel with a Gollum toy riding it. Conference rooms had quirky names. Multi-monitors are the rule, with HP workstations. Windows, but I expected that. General corp IT setup, but again that's nothing surprising. Everyone was exceptionally friendly, glad I'm coming on, etc. The tech areas aren't OCD levels of organized, but everything is in it's place, and logical. So no warning signs, nothing scary.

I really have good feelings about this. I felt welcome, and that people were glad I'm coming onboard. I'm going to be busy, they've needed a 3rd person in the dept for a while. So I see much testing of my ability to pick up stuff quick. But, I feel like it will be appreciated by the coworkers, and if things go according to personal plan, I'll show that I'm really necessary, and I'll be brought on board for real. But, even if not, I really do think this will be a good step for me in general.

So I get a long weekend. I'll get some social in, I'll get some quiet in, and I'll be ready to rock and roll. So go team Vulpine. *waves tentacles in joy*