Thursday, May 18, 2006
Welcome to LAF
As you all know by now, I started working at LAF (which stands for “Large Accounting Firm,” by the way) this week. It’s been one heck of a week. But what amazes me most about the job is how well things work.
You see, I was ruined at my last couple of jobs. When I started working at Abbott, oh so long ago, everything was a pain. I went through orientation the first few days, but when I was finally able to start working, I couldn’t start working. You see, I didn’t have computer access yet. And it took me TWO WEEKS to get it.
This wouldn’t have been such a problem if I were, say, a plumber. But I was a Quality Engineer whose sole purpose was to crunch numbers on a computer. So I basically sat idle for two weeks reading SOPs. (If you don’t know what SOPs are, trust me, you don’t want to.)
But when I got to LAF, I was good to go almost immediately. I didn’t get my computer on my first day, but that’s okay because I was in training. On my second day, they gave me a laptop and then walked me through every program I’d be using. That night, I took my laptop home and was pleasantly surprised to discover that with a push of a button (and a double click), I was hooked up to LAF’s intranet. I was SO confused. Clearly, there had to be more hoops to jump through. Nothing could be THAT easy. But it was.
And the training is so much better too. At Abbott, you either read your training in paper form or via mainframe. Here, everything’s web-based. And interactive. So you’ll have quizzes midway through. The last training session I had featured AV clips sprinkled throughout. It’s almost as if LAF realized just how boring it is to read 30 pages of legalese. What an idea! Make things simple enough for people to understand. Then test them on their comprehension of it. Genius!
And comparing LAF to M&S is a complete joke. You see, M&S was a crappy company. They’re on the verge of going bankrupt. And so it was no surprise to me when I discovered that one of my subscriptions (for a website I needed to do my work) ran out. Not just for me, but for the entire office. From that point forward, we had to ask 1 guy in our St. Louis office to look up stuff for us. It’s almost like they took away ESPN.com and I had to call someone to find out the Cubs score every 10 minutes. Completely inefficient.
The other nice thing about this place is that they seem to understand the importance of “team-building.” The Wife has referred to the lack of “team-building” at her job, especially compared to her last one. Well, LAF is going nuts with it. Tonight, we have a dinner and a show at Second City. Tomorrow, there’s a happy hour to welcome back all the people who travel for a living. (A lot of our workers are only in the office about 10% of the time. I think it’s cool that they have a welcome back party every month. Of course, I can’t go this month, but that’s not a big deal because I don’t know these people anyway.)
Also scheduled for this summer are a boat cruise, a Cubs game, and an overnight retreat to Geneva (all during regular working hours). And because we’ve been successful for the past year, everyone gets an extra 4 summer holidays. How cool is that! I swear, I might never leave this company. (And somebody please remember to send me this entry in 6 months when I’m complaining about working 80 hours a week.)
You see, I was ruined at my last couple of jobs. When I started working at Abbott, oh so long ago, everything was a pain. I went through orientation the first few days, but when I was finally able to start working, I couldn’t start working. You see, I didn’t have computer access yet. And it took me TWO WEEKS to get it.
This wouldn’t have been such a problem if I were, say, a plumber. But I was a Quality Engineer whose sole purpose was to crunch numbers on a computer. So I basically sat idle for two weeks reading SOPs. (If you don’t know what SOPs are, trust me, you don’t want to.)
But when I got to LAF, I was good to go almost immediately. I didn’t get my computer on my first day, but that’s okay because I was in training. On my second day, they gave me a laptop and then walked me through every program I’d be using. That night, I took my laptop home and was pleasantly surprised to discover that with a push of a button (and a double click), I was hooked up to LAF’s intranet. I was SO confused. Clearly, there had to be more hoops to jump through. Nothing could be THAT easy. But it was.
And the training is so much better too. At Abbott, you either read your training in paper form or via mainframe. Here, everything’s web-based. And interactive. So you’ll have quizzes midway through. The last training session I had featured AV clips sprinkled throughout. It’s almost as if LAF realized just how boring it is to read 30 pages of legalese. What an idea! Make things simple enough for people to understand. Then test them on their comprehension of it. Genius!
And comparing LAF to M&S is a complete joke. You see, M&S was a crappy company. They’re on the verge of going bankrupt. And so it was no surprise to me when I discovered that one of my subscriptions (for a website I needed to do my work) ran out. Not just for me, but for the entire office. From that point forward, we had to ask 1 guy in our St. Louis office to look up stuff for us. It’s almost like they took away ESPN.com and I had to call someone to find out the Cubs score every 10 minutes. Completely inefficient.
The other nice thing about this place is that they seem to understand the importance of “team-building.” The Wife has referred to the lack of “team-building” at her job, especially compared to her last one. Well, LAF is going nuts with it. Tonight, we have a dinner and a show at Second City. Tomorrow, there’s a happy hour to welcome back all the people who travel for a living. (A lot of our workers are only in the office about 10% of the time. I think it’s cool that they have a welcome back party every month. Of course, I can’t go this month, but that’s not a big deal because I don’t know these people anyway.)
Also scheduled for this summer are a boat cruise, a Cubs game, and an overnight retreat to Geneva (all during regular working hours). And because we’ve been successful for the past year, everyone gets an extra 4 summer holidays. How cool is that! I swear, I might never leave this company. (And somebody please remember to send me this entry in 6 months when I’m complaining about working 80 hours a week.)
