my first week at the new job

The first week at my new job is over. So far I'm not impressed.

Getting up early and getting to the office works out a little better than expected, I guess. Though the first two or three days were tough. I hope I'll get used to it. It's not easy for me, a night owl chronotype, to get to bed before 11 PM (I have to get up at 6 AM).
The problem is that, while they officially have flexi-time, there's a core time starting at 8:30 AM. It's ridiculous, really. The city is ugly, so no-one wants to live there and there are a lot of commuters. But still everyone has to be there at 8:30 AM - which in my opinion is way too early for core time. I could take a faster train and sleep longer, but I'd not quite arrive at 8:30 AM...

Generally, the company does not seem to have high regards for their employees and it's rather old-fashioned. Additionally to the disadvantage for night owls because of the early core time (which is unhealthy), flexi-time is rounded to 5 minutes - always to the disadvantage of the employee. So for example if you arrive at 8:21 AM and leave at 5:32 PM, it will be recorded as 8:25 and 5:30. I see absolutely no reason for this in modern times (your work time is recorded by chips anyway), except to make money. I guess that there'll be a lot of minutes over all the staff that won't be paid
Break time isn't very flexible either. You must take a 15 minutes breakfast break and 45 minutes lunch break. Your work time will automatically be reduced by at least one hour. If you go out for a break and it takes longer than 45 minutes, it will be that break time plus 15 minutes.
Whatever overtime you worked will be lost at each end of the month. So there's no way to keep a "security" amount of overtime for doctor's appointments, like I always used to. Of course the overtime will be deleted without you getting paid for it...
Oh, and even though everything is recorded in SAP, there's no way for you to take a look at what's stored.

Additionally to all those issues, I have not yet been welcomed by human ressources. I'm used to haveing a talk on the first day and have everything explained to me. The HR person responsible for me has been away on Monday and Tuesday, but has not contected me since. I tried to call and had a co-worker tell him I called - no reaction. I had to send an e-mail and ask for a meeting, then I got an appointment next Tuesday, called "your  issues" (or subjects or questions, I'm not quite sure how to translate). As if it's a special appointment for me and not something that should be a matter of course!
I also didn't have an introduction meeting with my boss. There's no team leader, so my boss is the departement chief. He's only in the office Tuesday to Thursday and in Berlin on the other days. He met me by chance when he came into the room on Tuesday and seemed to have forgotten about it all. We had a short talk, a few minutes, after a meeting I attended. But that's it.
So I'm pretty much left alone at work. I'm glad I already know two of my co-workers, otherwise I'd feel quite lost. They try to explain things to me the best they can.

Overall I don't feel treated very well.

But, to end this on a positive note, the room is quite nice. I've always only been in open plan offices, so it's quite a change. It's a small room with only three other people. It has windows looking out onto a quiet street, with some trees, but there's never any direct sun.



PS:
One other strange thing: installed on the computer are Lotus Notes, OpenOffice and MS Office. What do you need three different office suits for?! Read more on this article...