My trip to Philadelphia
May. 27th, 2014 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckPoaching from what I wrote to the spammers on 5/15.
I am now required to take a 30 minute lunch each day. 1) I have to remember. 2) I have to learn to STOP and do it. Today, I remembered, so I stopped. Taking the opportunity to catch up my personal mail, which I ignored since last Thursday, more or less and now it is making me as anxious as voice mail, which is horrible! Personal mail is supposed to be fun! :(
Philadelphia was mostly good. I had hoped to be able to do "me" stuff, but I wasn't able to settle enough on the train to do anything on Miss Lemon during the train trip, and then in my off time at the hotel, same. Couldn't get in the mind set to write, everything was too strange. Plus, on Sunday, I thought I'd be in the mood to do stuff, but I didn't get to the hotel unil after 8pm, and I was all revved up from the travel, so basically, Sunday night was just weird.
Orientation itself was about what you would expect from two days of meetings on things like retirement benefits, health benefits, ethical compliance, timekeeping, etc. Interesting on one level, super-duper dull on another.
Only one other person was being initiated - an associate who is in one of the New Jersey offices. Nice guy, just coming out of 8 years of government practice, so also a newbie to the large firm environment.
Monday evening was fun, though. The associate said whenever he's in Philly he goes to Dinic's for a certain sandwich. He directed me to the Reading Terminal Market. This place: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=reading+terminal+market+philadelphia&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=reading+terminal+market+philadelphia&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk= Sadly, I got there just after 5pm, and a lot of the places were shutting down, but it was still a really interesting place to visit.
Then from there, I walked down to Constitution Hall and the Liberty Bell. I got some tiny Liberty Bells in the museum shop for the kids, then I walked back up Chestnut and Walnut streets to my hotel. Those are the high end shopping/dining neighborhoods, as well as quite a bar scene. It was VERY busy at 6pm. I stepped into Lush, and also Lululemon, which was right next door.
Unfortunately, in my hopes of making it to Dinic's before they closed (I failed), I chose NOT to go back to my hotel for good walking shoes, and by the time I got back for the evening, I had three HUGE blisters. Still, before I went to sleep, I opened up MapMyRun and planned a 4km route, just in case.
I got up Tuesday at 4:50, and my feet felt much better, so I did an episode of Zombies, Run using the route I had planned. I felt like it was a terrible performance. I got a stitch in my side near the end and I felt like I walked a lot during the freeform run, but it turned out to be my best run yet, by a whole kilometer! So I figure that's the difference between running on hills v. flat streets.
OK, lunch is over, so back to work! And I have required billables now - I need about 6 hours a day on average to make my requirements, so there's that. Joy! Of course, the pressure is slightly less because we do everything flat fee, so my billables don't actually convert into a dollar figure being paid by the client - it's just internal tracking. Still. It's a thing.
I am now required to take a 30 minute lunch each day. 1) I have to remember. 2) I have to learn to STOP and do it. Today, I remembered, so I stopped. Taking the opportunity to catch up my personal mail, which I ignored since last Thursday, more or less and now it is making me as anxious as voice mail, which is horrible! Personal mail is supposed to be fun! :(
Philadelphia was mostly good. I had hoped to be able to do "me" stuff, but I wasn't able to settle enough on the train to do anything on Miss Lemon during the train trip, and then in my off time at the hotel, same. Couldn't get in the mind set to write, everything was too strange. Plus, on Sunday, I thought I'd be in the mood to do stuff, but I didn't get to the hotel unil after 8pm, and I was all revved up from the travel, so basically, Sunday night was just weird.
Orientation itself was about what you would expect from two days of meetings on things like retirement benefits, health benefits, ethical compliance, timekeeping, etc. Interesting on one level, super-duper dull on another.
Only one other person was being initiated - an associate who is in one of the New Jersey offices. Nice guy, just coming out of 8 years of government practice, so also a newbie to the large firm environment.
Monday evening was fun, though. The associate said whenever he's in Philly he goes to Dinic's for a certain sandwich. He directed me to the Reading Terminal Market. This place: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=reading+terminal+market+philadelphia&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=reading+terminal+market+philadelphia&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk= Sadly, I got there just after 5pm, and a lot of the places were shutting down, but it was still a really interesting place to visit.
Then from there, I walked down to Constitution Hall and the Liberty Bell. I got some tiny Liberty Bells in the museum shop for the kids, then I walked back up Chestnut and Walnut streets to my hotel. Those are the high end shopping/dining neighborhoods, as well as quite a bar scene. It was VERY busy at 6pm. I stepped into Lush, and also Lululemon, which was right next door.
Unfortunately, in my hopes of making it to Dinic's before they closed (I failed), I chose NOT to go back to my hotel for good walking shoes, and by the time I got back for the evening, I had three HUGE blisters. Still, before I went to sleep, I opened up MapMyRun and planned a 4km route, just in case.
I got up Tuesday at 4:50, and my feet felt much better, so I did an episode of Zombies, Run using the route I had planned. I felt like it was a terrible performance. I got a stitch in my side near the end and I felt like I walked a lot during the freeform run, but it turned out to be my best run yet, by a whole kilometer! So I figure that's the difference between running on hills v. flat streets.
OK, lunch is over, so back to work! And I have required billables now - I need about 6 hours a day on average to make my requirements, so there's that. Joy! Of course, the pressure is slightly less because we do everything flat fee, so my billables don't actually convert into a dollar figure being paid by the client - it's just internal tracking. Still. It's a thing.
