clog blog: My first week of work! =)

Monday was my first day of work at a 'real' job i.e. one that I will actually get paid for!! Besides being a bit bored and a bit slow the day was ok!

When I arrived on Monday there was some confusion as to when I was starting although the 11th was already agreed with the HR people. And there were some changes to the way my contract was set up which I didn't know about. As it is summer here, a lot of people, including the HR people, are on leave or going on leave soon so it is difficult to find anyone in the know to ask. But it worked out ok. I thought I was getting a flexDelft contract for the duration of my contract (~7 months) but now it is just flexDelft for the first two months or so until the TU Delft contract is ready. FlexDelft is much faster to get a contract as it is typically for short term or part time employment but a TU Delft contract takes about 6-8 weeks to organise and will start on 1 September. I don't really mind how they do it, it just would have been nice if there was more communication and less confusion.

On Tuesday (because no one told me on Monday that I had to go there...) I went to flexDleft to do the paper work and find out how it all works. The lady there must have thought that I am a hypochondriac because I asked a lot of questions trying to find out how sick leave works! Lol. Sick leave works quite differently here. In SA you generally get 3 weeks a year sick leave and you still get paid normally. Here you don't get paid for sick leave by your company. The first day you are off is called a 'waiting day' and you don't get paid. After the first day I think you are paid by the government or at least in part by the government. But if you are sick again within a month you don't have a 2nd waiting day. Very weird. At this point the lady thought I was planning to be sick a lot!

So as I said in a previous blog, my job is in the Bionanoscience department at TU Delft. They focus on single molecule measurements of DNA and RNA and DNA/RNA complexed with proteins. It is very physics orientated but they need molecular biologists to make the funky DNA and RNA constructs needed for their experiments. So that is what I will be doing. But it is just a temporary post till the end of January for one of the technician’s maternity leave.

The lady I am taking over from was still on leave on Monday. The rest of the week was spent catching up on ordering lab supplies, doing lab orientation tours, meeting people, doing lab safety tests for clearance to work in the ML-1 or bacteria labs and finding out who needs what constructs. So no wet work so far but I think it will be much busier this coming week.

Despite being a bit unorganized on the first day, everyone has been very friendly and I feel very welcome in the department so far. There are a lot of people from other countries so it is a very international environment and quite mixed. As a consequence English is the main language and all presentations and meetings are in English, lucky for me! Lol. But there is still a lot of Dutch spoken between the Dutch employees. I suppose it will help me to learn ;~) It is also quite a young department; besides the students and a few others, I would say most people are between 30 and 45. There is a very vibey, young and enthusiastic feel about the department which is quite nice.

One thing though, is that almost everyone struggles to say my name! People really struggle with the concept of a ‘n’ followed by a ‘w’. Most people say and spell it Brownen but Bromwen is also popular. They even struggle with just ‘Bron’. It is too annoying! I often wonder why my parents gave me such a difficult name… Only people with English as a first language generally get it. Justin also struggles with his name though so that makes me feel better ;~) [JC: But I am starting to get it. Hoping to be able to pronounce it properly be the end of the year! - sorry Bron, but this is what happens when your text is a little ambiguous! =)]

There is a coffee corner in the dept where you can get tea, coffee or hot chocolate whenever you want. Europeans are serious about their coffee though so no instant granules here! And it is amazing how much coffee they drink. There are two coffee machines one of which grinds beans fresh for every cup and makes espresso, cappuccino etc. There is also a microwave if you want to heat your lunch or whatever. There is a roster for keeping the kitchen tidy and doing the dishes but I had a quiet chuckle when I saw the dishwasher.

There is also a main cafeteria on campus which is in the building next to ours. They sell hot meals, soup, ready-made sandwiches, bread and ingredients to build your own sandwich, hot drinks, a variety of cold drinks and milk. Most people go there at lunch time even if they bring their own lunch. If it is sunny we sit on the grass or steps outside which is quite nice. Something which is quite different for us is the Dutch drink A LOT of milk and carne or buttermilk, not in tea or coffee but just straight. In the cafeteria you can buy 250 ml or 500 ml packs of milk and buttermilk. I had some this week and it was quite nice with my lunch actually, lol.

Another different thing is that people wear the same clothes two days in a row, but I mean the exact same clothes! Very weird. I generally wear jeans and jerseys more than once but not two days in a row and I definitely wouldn't wear the same shirt two days in a row! Especially if I had cycled to and from work and spent the day in a lab working with E. coli in a lab coat! Very weird.

Delft isn't very far from Rotterdam, I think it is about 15 km or so, but it takes me about 40-60 min for each direction. First I catch a tram to Rotterdam central station, then a train to Delft station and then a bus to the TU. I usually walk back to the station in the evening after work. It works ok if you time everything but at the moment they seem to change the train times every morning which is a bit annoying and often trains are delayed or cancelled. Because it is 'summer holidays', there are less trains running as well. But the website is quite useful and I check it everyday to see which trains are running. I have a monthly pass for the train and a zone one pass for the Rotterdam tram/metro/bus. Justin has one too but his company pays for his one but mine doesn’t…

For a first week of work I guess it was ok; I should enjoy the slowness while it lasts! I think it will pick up this week and it will be nice to be on the bench again. I was quite tired on Friday night though, lol. I fell asleep on the couch at about 9pm while Justin was watching Top Gear, lol. No laughing Dad Cross! I need to get my lab fitness back and I need to get used to early mornings again!

This weekend has mostly been a crickety weekend and otherwise we have been taking it easy. Justin played on Saturday and today we watched Holland play Kent at VOC in-between the rain. We were surprised to see Charl Langeveldt on the Kent line up but enjoyed watching him bowl. Not quite the same as watching at Newlands but it is nice to watch some international cricket again. Justin bought a Dutch orange and dark blue cricket jacket for 25 euro, what a deal! =)

In other cricket news, Justin's team won their game last week! YAY!! First one of the season =) Justin took 4 wickets and a catch but he didn't get to bat. Was a good game! Well done! =) Unfortunately their game was rained out this week and he only made 1 run at number 11 before the game was called off and he didn't get to bowl. A match is not scheduled for next weekend so we are hoping to get out and about again if the weather improves... It has been raining a lot, not sure who has the sun but it's not us!

In other news our landlord is coming round tomorrow evening to help us hang our pictures, yay! We will post pics of our now organized place when all the pics are up =) And I haven't forgotten about the pindakaas vloer or life in Holland! Blogs to follow soon...

Hope you had a good weekend! Have a good week!