shell shocked

Yesterday was my first day on the new job. Within the first hour I got a taste of what's to come for the next 6 months. I went into a project meeting with no experience and no clue what the project was about. I've been assigned to work with this established project team that's developing an resource management application. My first day was basically attending that 3 hour meeting at the start of the day in which I came of there just dazed by the amount of information being presented and anxious of what I had to "catch up" on. Unfortunately I've got to read up on a year's worth of work in prep for the design phase workshops that begin in 2 weeks. With any job change - first and foremost was to get a workstation, phone and computer access. I lost my god-like access and have now become just a regular "user". This is very frustrating as I now have to fill out forms for tasks that I would normally had administrative rights to perform.

I find that project management involves LOTS of meetings (like 75% of my day is spent in a meeting). I'm booked for an average of 2 per day - so far I haven't been able to contribute to the meetings and take notes like a mad woman. Deja vu of university life...someone at the front of the room spilling out jargon that I don't understand. This week I've been paired up with a business analyst to learn what she does and to spend the next 2 weeks getting my hands dirty in that field. I been asked to present my first "deliverable" for a meeting early next week. *sign* A business process diagram based on an interview and documents from some finance manager. :-) Should be interesting as I've never done a real-life one before.

Because this is a "developmental" position - I don't really have a manger, time schedule or core responsibilities. This is advantagous and dibilitating at the same time. I've been told that I can work what ever hours I like but I'd have to make sure I work 8 before going home. Coming from a restrictive environment - I didn't know what to do with this freedom and felt obligated to tell my mentors what my hours of work would be. I've picked 7:30-3:30. I've discovered that most of the project team don't come wandering in till 9am. I've also discovered that everyone has their own "preferred" meeting times - times in which they've had enough coffee in thier system to be coherent. On the downside - my time is shared between 2 project managers who have very differing ideas of what I should be engaged in. One person is very task oriented and the other is very "go with the flow". The personality types are challenging to work with as I haven't been able to adapt well to the "go with the flow" lady. Her ad hoc behaviour worries me as without defined goals - how will she measure my success? Duh - hopefully it won't be based on her "intuition".

So I will continue to plug away and hopefully feel more comfortable with the material. My stress levels are still high and I feel mentally exhausted by the end of the day. Each day is a learning experience and as soon as I get past the information overload stage - I'm sure I will enjoy working with this team. :-) I have justified buying myself a new work bag as I don't get to sit down at my desk much now and have dropped some of my file folders in the hallway. My backpack is handy but looks too kidish when walking around the office. Lol - it's all about fashion too!