Come fly with me...

induction 

Today i flew off, bleary eyed to the uk office of steria, the company that has been kind enough to pluck me from career obscurity and place my feet back on a solid road to being an IT professional.

I think they are great. I'm not just saying that either, none of my bosses read this, so there is no element of ass kissing involved.

To give you an idea of how it works, here is a scenario: My boss decides to do something. I think it's not the best way of going forward. I tell him how i think it could be done better. He listens. He may not change what he planned to do but he will take my view into consideration. If my idea makes more sense than his original idea then he will change. How many businesses work like that?

More often than not in previous employment i've spoken up about an idea where i see something does not make sense and i'm told something to the effect of: "we only pay you from the neck down son, you arent paid to think!"

The trip was fun but it was a bit of a long day.

I started off at 5am in the morrning, picked up by robert, a good work buddy, who drove all the way from n'ards to the airport via my house to save me having to drive. (which was extremly nice of him). We flew out of Aldergrove after a starbucks breakfast where i met Paul Campbell. Paul is a great guy, and an excellent musician, who happened to be flying off that day with his wife to spring harvest. I love when you meet people you haven't seen or even thought of in years and you find that not only did they do well, but they have found love and they seem to be happy. Amen.

Upon landing in Luton airport we discovered that the Easyjet staff were completely unaware of the fact we were coming. Noone had bothered to get them out of bed, air traffic control could have been decent enough to tell someone. The pilot spoke: "ladies and gentlemen, we've made great time from belfast..... which has created some problems for us here on the ground as there is no one on duty yet to receive you. But don't worry, i've got the number of one of the guys, i'll just give him a call...."

Within literally minutes there was a ground crew running to us, which was reassuring, as their main job is to stop us climbing on the wings and getting ourselves wedged into the engines. Good job they were there really, everyone knows how i like to climb on things.

Got a cab to the office in Hemel, a short distance away from the airport. The driver didn't speak that much english, but that doesn't matter, he had GPRS. Bob and I got to the canteen, had breakfast and then joined the other newbies for the main event.

We had an introduction to the history of the company, met some key people and then had to make a presentation to the CEO, who was most definatly not the monster everyone was winding me up to think he was. The man was attentive, polite and kindly to us fresh faced kids who asked awkward questions and tried hard to show him how intelligent we are and that it was a great thing he did by hiring us, adding to the potential of the company.

All went well, and once finished we hot footed it off back to the airport.

Easyjet once again caused a hiccup by printing my boarding pass incorrectly. The stonefaced security, delighted that they had some power over me cast me out of the departure lounge entrance, smugly referring me back to the check-in que to get my ticket adjusted. I passed Stelios, the easyjet owner on my way, who would have got an earful, if it was not for the pesky camera in his face! Off we flew with no further hitch.

Once in belfast i got a lift back with Dave, another newbie. NIce lad.

And home again 12 hours after i left. Bless, i've gone all jetsetter!