Welcome to the Working Week

So, I started my job this week.

I am in way over my head. The girl who is training me tells me every day how impressed she is with how fast I'm "getting it" with their tools and platforms.

In the past three days there have been a lot of meetings I have sat in and I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm exposed to terms like scrum, scrum master, agile, vigilante, spike, sprint, grooming and my favorite "ingested into the API." 

Within this group, they build all their own software tools. So there is our side and the developer side. It is kind of unique because it is a small office. I talked to a friend who said that there is no reason for me to sit in Dev meetings, but I think that the lines of communication between training and support (our group) and product ownership/development (their group) is really strong here because we go to these meetings. We talk to the users, we tell the dev guys, they fix the things. They add the features. We report back to the users. We then train them on the changes. 

Seems to work for them. Another friend said "you don't need to know what scrum is, you just need to know how they do it in your office and be aware that when you move somewhere else that they scrum totally different."

And each time they say "scrum" I giggle to myself and think "scum."

Each of the people I've met are really cool. Our entire team is comprised of women, and that's new to me. I'm used to a mixed bag or mostly guys.  Fridays at 4 is beer time. Yesterday one of the dev guys supplied the beer from the tiny little micro brewer in our neighborhood and I told them about Shenanigans with Dave. They were fascinated by Dave's story, and our adventures in beer and food. It was a lot of fun to talk about all the different craft breweries we've gone to.

That's what I do - bond over beer or football.

I do feel that it is a good match though, even if I don't speak the language. I probably should start planning ahead and bringing my lunch instead of spending 11 bucks on food daily. Except for Thursdays when my favorite food truck is parked at the end of my street. Mmmmmm.