The Saga of The Stanford Employee System

This is an ongoing saga throughout which I feel as if Strongbad's The System is Down should be playing. But, you'll understand once you read on.

I signed my offer letter for Stanford on the 16th of June, I was supposed to be officially employed on the 19th when I went in for orientation. Much to my dismay, when I went to pick up my ID card, I was not in the system yet. So, I decided I would try again the next day on my way to work as the card office is not terribly convenient to the lab. The next morning I was still not in the system. The woman did, however, give me a phone number to call before I came in the next time. I called. No one answered. So I stopped by anyway. Not in the system.

I let an entire day go by and tried again. No luck. I then e-mail my HR department to see what they know about this. I get an e-mail back saying that they all thought someone else was going to input my data, and therefore it never got done, but they would do it first thing the next morning.

I checked the next day, you can guess the answer at this point. I e-mailed again. This time I got a response saying that they had an error message that they needed IT to look at. They would get back to me when they had figured out what was wrong and I was in the system.

Monday comes around. I finally get an e-mail that says I have an employee ID number. I call the card office to make sure they have my information. First surprise is that someone answers. Second surprise is that I'm in the system! Third surprise is that at 3:30 in the afternoon they tell me the card office has closed for the day. (The hours, by the way, are 8-5). The funny thing about this is that the guy told me that the office had closed because they were too busy. I got off the phone and started laughing. I mean really, who closes down when you have too much business?! That's one of the funnier things I've heard. The only way I can make sense of it is that they had so many people they closed the office to more so that they could clear out those who were already in there. But that's not what he said. So who knows what those silly card office people do?!

In addition to all of this, I have gone down to the hospital ID center to get my card so that I can access the building with the fMRI scanner. But they were closed three days out of that week. For no appartent reason. No holidays, just, closed. (I finally did get that ID, although it is still not functional in getting me into the building because I'm not in the system. We're working on this too.)

I finally get my Stanford University ID card on Tuesday morning. I am entitled to a free CalTrain pass with my ID, so later that afternoon I go over to Parking and Transportation to receive my sticker. I guess I should have called first. I wasn't in the system. Not only that, they only download on Mondays. So I have to wait until next week to get my pass.

Can you say ridiculous?! It's so absolutely insane how incredibly slow this all is. It really can't be that hard to put a person in the system and have all pieces of the system automatically update. I mean, the registrars do it all the time. Really now. It's Stanford. I expected better. Just watch, next Monday, I'll hear the system is down, the system is down....

Thank You Notes

So, I went with Sandor to his brother's wedding two weeks ago or so, which was fun. We got a thank you note very quickly actually, but I continue to be amused by it, so I thought I would share. First of all, it was addressed to Sandor Prater and Katy Not-Prater. Which I found highly amusing. I didn't sign my last name in the guest book, but, had they looked in the guest book they would have known how to spell my name. Even more entertaining to me was the inside, which read:
Dear Sandor and Katy,
First, Katy, I hope to high-heaven that I am spelling your name correctly.

Nope. But, no worries. Even the state of California can't get it right. You would think it shouldn't be that hard. But no. I just attract misspellings all over the place. :) Perhaps I'll start misspelling everyone else's name just to make up for it. Because we all know an eye for an eye is the absolute best way to fix things.

Notes from the Lab

Taking my online safety training:

In the event of an earthquake you should:

1. panic

2. duck and cover

3. jump out the nearest window

4. look out the window



Oh, I choose option 3. Definitely.

The Aptness of Fortune Cookie Fortunes

My fortune today:

You will soon be part of a team. Work cooperatively for success.

Without adding any of the various fun endings that I would normally, I am amused at the fact that I am officially hired and start work tomorrow. I am indeed joining a team. And cooperation will be necessary. Who knew fortune cookie fortunes could actually come true?! ;)

And Now... An Apartment

Well, so, I've signed my offer letter, I have "orientation" for being an employee at Stanford tomorrow. I've basically already started working in the lab, and now, I have an apartment. Crazy. I feel like this should make me all adult, and stuff. But instead, I don't really feel like I'm any more adult-like than I was before. Oh well.

My apartment is going to be nice. Vaulted ceilings because there's no one above me, a huge living room, although the kitchen is a little small, lots of closet space, and a really nice bedroom. It looks out on the pool, and most importantly, it's a two minute walk to the Caltrain station, which will take me to work and back. And it's also not far from a grocery store. Both incredibly important things when one doesn't have a car. So, I'm excited. It's in a very nice neighborhood. I'm excited to go walking around in it, and there's a school nearby with swings and such as well. I move in on the 15th of July. So, I have to wait a bit to get into it, but that's alright with me, as it gives them time to redo the grout in the bathroom, repaint, new blinds, and new carpets. Pretty good I think. And it's got big windows with which I can let in wonderful sunshine! Yay! I'll put up pictures when I get some. The apartment is occupied, so I didn't want to take pictures of their stuff. But it will be pretty!

Otherwise, I've been dancing a little, reading, playing games with Sandor and his coworkers, hanging out with friends from college and high school, and life is pretty good. Of course, I'll have lots less time when I actually start working full time on Monday. But, I'll work it out. It'll still be fun. Hopefully. Except that I have to work next Saturday morning. But, such is the life of a lab assistant. Oh well, the kids are really cute, so it's not bad at all really.

Job For Meeeeeee!!!!!

I got hired by the Stanford lab. It's awesome. I went in today for their pizza party, and then spent the next two hours getting inundated with information. It was a little too much to take in all at once. But I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. They're all pretty awesome people. Now it's a matter of finding an apartment and transportation so that I can get to the lab whenever they need me 24/7. But I only have to work 40 hour weeks, so if we do weekends or nights, we can take partial days off. Which is awesome. So yeah. It should be fabulous I'm really excited to start getting actually trained. I might not get trained on the scanner until August though, which would be sad because I couldn't help with scans until then, but, I will get trained at some point. And for now I can concentrate on learning how to analyze the data and keep the study running that's in progress. But yeah. Happy happy day!

One More...

I have another meeting with the Stanford lab team tomorrow morning. I can't imagine they would call me back to tell me know, but I'm also not sure they're actually going to offer me the job tomorrow. Hopefully! But, we'll see. Whatever I will be doing there, it's going to be over lunchtime. Eat lots beforehand and take a snack in the car... no stomach rumblies during interviews. ;) I'll write again when I know more.

Interviews

So, I'm up in the Bay Area, enjoying myself. Been out with the boys a bunch, the boys being Sandor, Andrew, Shua, and sometimes Sandor's coworkers. It's been really fun so far. We've gone mini-golfing, and played board and card games, and saw X3, and various other things. I got to see Andrea briefly while she was up here, which was really nice.

Most importantly though, I've been applying for research positions, and I actually heard back from one at Stanford! It's most likely a two-year position, doing research with Alzheimer's, and also child mathematical development, there's also a music and depression study, and some other things that I could be involved with as well. The cool part is that I would get to continue working with EEG, which would be good to keep up the skills. But I would also get to learn how to work with fMRI and things, which would be fabulous for my resume. They asked me in for an interview two days after I submitted my resume, which was kind of insane. And then asked me to come back in after the weekend. Which I take as a good sign. I really really would like the position. But it makes me nervous because they are now interviewing other people as well. *sigh* We'll see how it goes. I should know in a week or so.

For the moment, I'm learning how to play computer games and Magic. Yes, I'm being a dork. But it's fun. And hopefully if Stanford doesn't come through, I'll be able to find something else quickly that is just as good. I want to know now!!