First day of work.

Shure. Very interesting. I think I'm going to like this.

So far no Caffeine!

It took me 40 minutes to get to work, but this was taking what I suspect was not the optimal route.

The morning was spent in training watching videos like "It's a jungle in there". And various other standard training videos. We also went over benefits. I think there were twice as many papers there than at a mortgage closing. (Which I do tomorrow at lunch.)

I saw my manager for about two minutes before lunch. He said here's your desk, it's not clean yet, so throw out the stuff from the last guy. He then said you should sit in this meeting at 1pm... welcome to Shure. I get a feeling I'll be in a lot of meetings at Shure compared to Mindspeed.

I sat in the meeting for about three hours. Learned a whole lot about a automated mixer project, and found out that the project didn't have sufficient staffing, so it was being pushed off for a few months.

Regarding staffing, one of the "Analog Guys" in the meeting asked me:
AG "Can you do analog design?"
PG "Yes, but I don't have a lot of experience."
AG "Do you know how to bias a transistor?"
PG "Yes"
AG "You're hired"
At this point one of the more senior people in the meeting chimes in:
"Wow, our standard for picking out analog designers has sure gone down hill."
To this I say:
"Well, yeah, I can bias a transistor, but I'd leave off the coupling caps and blow the thing up."

I don't think he was serious, but had I pushed the matter I probably could get into analog design pretty easily here. This is promising.

So after the meeting I see my manager again (for another two minutes.) He tells me that he's not sure what project I'm going to work on. He then talked about several projects. Then he asks "Can you program in C?" I say "Sure, it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I can do it just fine". At this, my assigned mentor Paul Rooney gives me the sign that I should shut up and not volunteer to do stuff like this. (You know, the bugged out eyes and the finger slashing the throat look.)

Chris then says he wants me to review a layout for a wireless microphone system and port some embedded code to a reduced cost processor. Despite Paul's advice I say "That sounds interesting."

A couple minutes later Chris comes back with a guy named Leif and says "Plans have changed." I get put on this wireless mic project, shown the board layout and schematics, introduced to the engineers who will help me, and handed a schedule that shows my time scheduled out till November on a 17x24 inch piece of paper. I notice the schedule is already a week behind.

I think I'm going to like this place. Lots of geeky toys. There audio test room has a fully automated digital mixer. Yeah, like about 8 ft long, with a big German do not touch warning on top of it. (Which I ignored, claiming ignorance of German).

I also found out that the studio they are building should be done in August and that the purpose of it is for people like me to try out equipment and "jam." That was exactly the unbelievable answer that I was hoping to hear, but didn't dream was possible.

Finally I was shown "the important stuff" as Paul called it, on the intranet website: namely, the Shure store. They are selling Beta 58 microphones for $30! Their $4500 top end wireless mic set is going for about $800. A portion of my salary will definitely be going back to the company store.

The software on my computer wasn't really working very well, and I didn't have a chance to really sit down at my desk for very long anyways. I think I sat down for maybe ten minutes all day. I got my phone set up. By the time I checked my email I had 13 messages. I haven't read them all yet. I haven't even got rid of the stuff in my desk from the previous guy who was using it.

I'm already taking a long lunch tomorrow. (I have to sign a mortgage.) I had to have Paul schedule my time for me on the calendar system. (Which I guess everybody uses extensively.) My password wasn't working yet.

I'll be using Mentor Graphics to do layout and schematic work. That brings back memories of college days.

I already knew my manager Chris Benes from Mindspeed and from soccer. I ran into Paul Herbert and Mark Manthei from Mindspeed for lunch. I also knew Karl Janowski from U of I. I feel like I already know half the guys there.

It's great to be back at work.

Anybody need an embedded software or hardware job? These guys are hiring like crazy.