Baby steps

It’s interesting to observe how I’ve managed to lower my expectations since I’ve arrived here.

I was super happy this week, when I finally got a dock for my laptop (now, it cannot just be stolen), and a cabinet with drawers for my desk. It was a huge surprise since I’ve been previously told that I will be able to request them only next year (to receive who knows when..).

Also, I get really shocked when someone responds right away to my e-mail. Especially, if the response is actually related to the questions I asked in the e-mail. I’ve been having quite a few of those incidents lately..

I imagine that many people started hating me, as I was actually following up on things that I was promised and not waiting for miracles to happen (such as getting a laptop on my start day instead of a month later..).

This week I’ve interviewing language schools for my private Portuguese lessons. I guess it never occurred to anyone that before prepaying like $10,000 worth of classes, one should AT LEAST know the study program of the school requesting the immediate advanced payment. I am changing this. My company has this incredible system of vendors they work with, that charge them absurd prices for zero service, with no one ever checking the quality of those services (for example, HP for IT products, really?? or IBM for Lotus Notes, or useless shipping companies that don’t ship your cargo for 2 months because they are waiting for some approval they never requested). .

Today I also learned to make payments via the bank ATM (seems like you can pay ANTYHING and ANYONE this way). My colleague was shocked to find out that in the US we pay bills with checks (if you think of it, we should be too. So archaic..). So far, I have not seen any checks since I’ve arrived here but I am told by my bank manager that one could get some of those. Not sure how, however. A bank account here doesn’t come with a list of services.