Thursday, April 18 First day

 I woke up around 6:15. Coffee, cookies, meds (Omega-3, L-Carnitine), and I was leaving a bit late by 7:10am. The train was unexpectedly crowded; I didn't get to sit till 96th. I was reading the Latin American textbook, but I couldn't concentrate much. Read, perhaps, two pages – my mind was elsewhere.

NYFD investigation.

At Christopher, we stopped; there was a delay. "The train will not move. We're waiting for police investigation," – we were told. I went on Twitter; @NYCTSubway – the only reason why I may open Twitter these days. 

Southbound 1 trains are delayed while we request NYPD assistance for a person being disruptive on a train at Christopher St-Sheridan Sq

Christopher? That was the train I was on. They closed all doors and only kept the first one open. People were slowly loosing their hope that the train will move; leaving. 8:03am. I was late for my first day. Finally, I decided to leave too. The only people left on the train were sleeping homeless. I got to the street – it was drizzling, gloomy; Christopher – one of my favorite neighborhoods on the weekend – was waking up; people getting on the subway, realizing it was not moving; annoyed, trying to find out how to go to their work. I waited for the bus, but It was not coming; then Google Maps showed no more delay on the train – I went back to the subway and jumped to the car just before the door closed. 

A young white guy was sitting across me: looking senseless in one spot. Black clothes, backpack, no emotion. Was he 20-something? Maybe younger. A strong smell of weed was coming from his side. His face was pink, as in the mountains; did he spend the night on the street? It looked like that. He didn't react to anything. Meanwhile, the crowd on the train was agitated about something going on on the platform: as the train started moving, we saw cops talking to a black guy sitting on a bench; the guy was barefoot, only in his underwear and top-tank, with his hands to his head, elbows on his knees, questioned by the cops. The train kept moving. 

I got to the office by 8:30am. The room was not too large: a room for about 20 people, 12 present. They were doing introductions when I came in. The old man was rather lengthy: something about wireless communication engineering was a job all his life. Google guy? – myself – "This place is about stability," - Jannice told me, the lead of the orientation; she is cool – I liked her, but that was too judgmental. I actually ran away from Google myself. What else? We were four new HRs, one museum lady, one well-groomed political adviser, a few lawyers, a couple of civil engineers, and one software engineer.

The diversity & inclusion section turned out quite entertaining – the guy was telling us anecdotes loosely related to diversity, but interesting more generally. I probably learned the most about MTA in from him: 

• that there are seven agencies: HQ, C&D – Construction&Development, NYC Transit, Long Island Railroad, Metro North railroad, Bridges&Tunnels, and the Bus company;
• that the CEO is elected by the state senate;
• Crush course: Title VI is about outside, Title VII is about inside – probably the most useful lesson I had in this area;
• Half of the problems on the subway are signal problems

Then the ethics section. Strictly no receiving gifts of any form; outside projects need permission. That'll be a pain. We'll see.

Then benefits. NYSLRS is the state pension – work for 10 years, you get $14K/year; work for 30 years you get $55K/year pension. Okay; I'm not ready to sign up for so long. VDC is more traditional: only one-year vesting, 8% of salary contributed by the employer, 6% by me – 14% total – looks more attractive to me.

For lunch, I invited Janelle, who was sitting across from me. She was from the legal department. That's quite a different world out there. 

Then some more advice on 401k, 457. Those are without matching. No, 457 is not good for an emergency fund. Wouldn't it be cool to put some money before tax easily usable when unemployed, paying low-income tax? No, 457 is for the pension –  I was told. And 401k Roth is useful for staying in tax brackets when need more money to spend.

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We were done by 3:30pm. I texted Will, if he wanted to meet; Janelle left, meanwhile; we didn’t exchange contacts. 

Will’s office turned out on the 20th floor as well, just steps away from our orientation. Will turned out tall, a bit taller than me. He opened another door and we walked into the bubble: the office space behind the door looked much nicer than the conference rooms for the orientation; reminded me of “startup bubble inside MTA” that Will talked about. His office is not to himself: I met Ryan sitting in his room, and Sunny’s desk; Sunny is on vacation. Will was on a call, turned out, so I talked to Ryan. The view was nice: the city hall across, the statue of liberty, Hudson river.

Ryan recently graduated from a school in Michigan, but he worked here for 5 years – he was part-time remote while at school. Now he’s a consultant, sitting to the right hand from Will. Interesting arrangement. He showed me the app; he’s the front-end guy. I forgot all my meditations days before, and, of course, gave him some of my opinion about the UI. Okay, I hope I was not too bad, but next time I should rather tell him what I found I liked about his app. Everyone has an opinion, especially about the UI; that is better kept to themselves unless sincerely asked for. 

We talked about car crowd estimation. Turned out that each train car has a weight gauge used by the brakes – to calculate how much pressure is put on the brakes. That sensor can be captured and sent to us, so we know quite precisely how loaded is the car. Neat. So we talked, about location detection near the cars, underground, bluetooth beacons, etc. Will says no one uses that beacon for indoor navigation; the signs should be improved. I more agree with him than not. Talked about favorite subway systems around the world. They both like London’s TFL; mine is of course Tokyo’s. They say Tokyo’s trains run on time – they have quite different problems. I left them by 4:50pm. 

I went to check out my desk. My badge didn’t work on the 12th floor, but I sneaked in. My office is a traditional cubicle, but half of it with a short wall, and half of it with a long wall. Abhi next to me; then the window. The view was gorgeous: the statue of liberty, then Ellis Island, the city hall to the right. A beautiful old building right across with numerous elaborate statues: it says “Custom House” at the top. Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was on my head for the remainder of the evening:

I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years’ experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous “P. P., Clerk of this Parish,” was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer’s own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader’s rights or his own.

Oh, Hawthorne and his Custom-House – I remember the first time I was trying to read him and stumbling over his text written not for "the many". His "Custom-House" from somewhere in Massachusetts as an allegory to a bureaucratic institution empowering little people who waste their power for nothing. Did he actually work at the Custom House while writing his novels, or was it only an allegory? I don't even want to know.