Report from Broadway, 8th floor

Today is the first day of my internship with a nonprofit organization in downtown Oakland that does workforce development and sector specific job training initiatives. Needless to say, this first day has been filled with the obligatory elements of joining a new office. First we did the rounds where we met all the critical characters in the office. Then we got our email up. Next, we went to lunch. After lunch, we had an organizational policy briefing session. The last item on today's agenda is a meeting with the HR person to do our paperwork for pay and stuff like that. Apparently tomorrow there is some type of intern happy hour. All the interns here seem like cool people - about 6 of us in all.

Ah, the working life.

But my office is hardly a cubicle. Although I am only going to be here about 3 weeks, roughly half the length of this internship appointment, I am certain I will have hard time saying goodbye to this office. I have two huge windows overlooking downtown Oakland (looking south from 22nd Street). I can even see Lake Merritt, the Port of Oakland and the radio tower at Twin Peaks. One annoying thing that I know will never cease to irritate: 8 floors below me is a crosswalk equipped with one of those bird whistle notifications for blind or sight impaired people. I can hear it going off every 45 seconds. And this is with the windows closed.

This job so far is feeling like a good fit. It only takes me 20 minutes to get here by bus and I can bicycle if I fancy it. Interesting policy focus. Nice, funny colleagues. Nice view. And decent hours.