As the month started, I started working too. My new employer is a popoular Japanese game developer and publisher.
On my first day, I got in the office at 10:30 in the morning. There I underwent the general introduction for new employees along with 10 other new recruits, although only one other programmer, which actually ended up in my team.
I can say that I’m pretty happy with how things have gone so far. Working for a big company has it’s advantages. I got a superfast Dual Core Pentium 4 3GHz, 2GB of RAM an nVidia Quadro FX, a 24 inches Dell LCD monitor (Dell is selling some huge and cheap monitors here in Japan recently !) …and a crappy, supercheap ball mouse from Microsoft. I guess real programmers aren’t supposed to use mouses 8)
My coworkers are pretty cool. They all seem motivated, talkative. There is palpable excitement, it’s a great feeling, it makes me want to work ! The other day I had a private meeting with a guy in my team just to talk about graphics.
After many years I’m also being asked to go to GDC and Siggraph !! Yes !!
Admittedly, I’m in a sort of a special team, concerned more about research and less about immediate development. Other coworkers are working very long hours, and I fear the day when that will come for me.
The offices take several floors of a pretty large building. There are little or no directions around. So, one has to pretty much carry around printed maps of the floors !
It’s so different now that there are actual refreshment rooms. I can just step out and grab a coffee or a snack.
Work time is also flexible. One is expected to do at least 8 hours of work per day but can get in anytime before 11 AM and leave by 4 PM or so (provided that 8 hours have past). ..well at least in theory.
The actual work time rules seem to be a bit more complicated but I honestly didn’t catch the details. It was all explained in Japanese.
Some of my coworkers speak good English, but otherwise a minimum level of Japanese is required.
cool cool
…and my new TeraStation 1.6TB gave me problems again. After downgrading the firmware and restructuring the array, disk 3 failed again. I then restructured again, made a disk check (takes several hours) which says that things are OK, but I doubt that !
I’m now trying to see if the support at Buffalo can give any hint, before sending the TeraStation back to them for eventual repair.
Sort of sucks.. and I’m sleepy !
zzzzzzzzzzz
poof
Edit: Fack ! I fixed the spelling error !
Posted by Davide Pasca in Diary, Japan, work