zur Arbeit

Today was my first day of work.
I already hate my commute, but I'm really happy that I decided to look for apartments near the office...I was really spoiled by my 7 minute drive in Schaumburg!

I took my bus, from my favorite bus stop (across the street from the Lindt factory!) to downtown and transfered to the tram that goes to the office. Going through downtonw I've never seen so many people wearing suits. I also noticed that unlike in the US, only a few people were playing with their blackberries/iphones and it was super quiet.There was also nobody drinking coffee or eating.

I got to the office and was able to check in all in German. Hans was out of the office, so Marco came down and met me. He took me to meet everyone in actuarial and risk management. I remembered most of the names of people I had met in November. I was really happy that I was able to go most of the day speaking only German!
There was a vase of beautiful flowers at my desk, which made me smile. "Die Blumen sind fuer Sie," Marco told me. There was also a copy of "Foundations of Casualty Actuarial Science" with the chapter on loss reserving tabbed.
Since I couldn't do much on my computer I spent most of the day reading that and studying....and enjoying hearing my coworkers speaking in German and randomly hearing "loss reserves," "expected loss ratio," "richtige buchen", and "IBNR."
I still have a lot of computer issues....my computer arrived at 10am with a US keyboard...although it was set to the German keys, so I kept switching the z and y. Thanks to Alex, who sits across from me,we got that taken care of and now I have a German and an American keyboard, so I can decide which one I prefer. I still can't access my work email and I don't have a phone or ResQ or SAS, but we did get my printers set up. I dind't get a chance to take my picture for my ID...apparently they only do that 30 minutes/day...go figure.
At lunch we were talking CSC and the ticket numbers for setting up the printer and the email, etc. It's funny that you have the same technical/computer problems when starting a new job no matter where you are.