Day 1
A bit late but hey that's what happens when you move. Hopefully when I settled in, everything will be smooth and these entries will be more regular, ya dig. Let's get started on my "Day 1" experience in SF.
June 9th, one month before my birthday, I left Seattle (the Town) to pursue an opportunity in SF (the City). For 6 months, I've been in deep thought about this decision. I came to the following conclusion: in life there are opportunities which can challenge you to push to the next level, I believe this is one of them. This opportunity is a challenge for me to prove I am the man I think I am: not just an engineer and a business man, but a person that can make things happen. Turn ideas into reality. To make something from out of nothing. To really push myself to limits I could only imagine. All my life I have pride myself in the fact that I have done this. I was to test if I can do it again and that before it wasn't a fluke. My word is bond.
Sunday night, I left the Town and arrived in the City at 9:20PM. Coincidentally, one of the cofounders (there are three) was on the same flight as me and spotted me in the security line. Small ass world right!?! We spoke for a bit and met back up when the plane landed. Our conversation consisted of some small talk, working out, startups, and life. When we touched down my friend, one of the other cofounders, swooped me up his girlfriend and employee 1 (also a friend from college and his roommate . It was dope seeing them. We chopped it up as if we seen each other on the regular. No awkwardness, not a moment of silence. The ride back was completely filled with interesting conversation. Upon dropping off one of the cofounders off at his place in SoMA, we made our way back to my friend's spot in Outer Richmond. This area seriously reminds me of Beacon Hill in the Town. It's full of east Asians (Chinese) shops and restaurants and people. The food out here is cheap ($5 - $7) range for a plate. Bubble tea is like ~$3, and it go hard as hell. His spot is a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place. It's the lower unit to a two unit building. I want to say its less than 650 square feet. Despite it's size, it's perfect for his needs, plus its only ~$650 a month. It's in a low key neighborhood close to shops and Golden Gate park. The remaining of the night, my friend and I stayed up until 2AM talking about my transition, my experiences the last month, and get an idea of how I'm feeling. I expressed to him my motivation for coming out here. He's a great guy whom I believe in genuinely interested in my well being and wants to help me reach it too. Hell, he also unconsciously want me to help him too!
Next morning at 8:30AM, we headed over to another cofounders house (in Outer Sunset) to pick up my hardware (my laptop) for work. They treated me to breakfast at this Cantonese joint called Lychee Cafe. Cool ass spot that served breakfast for deals. For $5 I got a solid meal: pork chop, ramen, and milk tea. Legit playa. .
We arrived in the office close to 10:30AM and as I walk upstairs, the rest of the team welcomed me. I'm employee 9, including the cofounders. They all welcomed me like family with open arms and showed me to my desktop. I greatly appreciated it because I felt welcomed and valued. I felt like I'm part of the team. I want to prove to them I want to be part of the team and help raise the team to the next level too. On my desk, I already had some good good: 2 27in monitors, keyboard, mouse, headphones, swag, notebook, and a new 15in Macbook Pro Retina. Twowhoo! This setup goes hard as hell. What topped it off was my package, a gift from my best friend, I had shipped down had arrived and was sitting on my desk. This is an upgrade from my previous employer which gave me a 13in Unibody White Macbook and a desktop with one 24in monitor. This brought raised things to a whole 'nother level. Most of my morning was spent getting acclimated and completing a list of items they had setup for me for my first day (development setup, workstation setup, user account provisioning, HR setup, direct deposit, benefits enrollment, permission setups, etc.). The only snag I came across my first day was my display adapters were defective and I couldn't utilize my two monitors. First world problems fam. No worries though, I spoke with our operations personnel, and they did the right thing and purchased me new ones which would arrive in two days. Legit, procurement seems to be a breeze here. This is a step up from my previous place since it usually requires searching for it, submitting a procurement request, or bringing in my own. Either way, it would normally take longer than two days. So +1 to my team. They got it right.
My first meal with the team was classic. Rotisseries chickens from Costco. One of my perks with my team is they provide lunch. Today, Costco delivered. I appreciate the frugal/resourceful mentality since it's not very practical for us to eat $20 meals since we are not cash flow positive yet. I admire the practicality and am down for the cause. Shoot, like my old phrase before, it's free it's for me. Obviously, the we would like to become cash flow positive, but that takes time and effort.
Overall, I think my first day was a success. I was able setup all my accounts, gather/request the necessary information needed for HR, and be able to checkout my team's code on my workstation. Personally, I like their setup a lot. It's modular, decentralized, and for the most part secure. At least more secure than my previous employers. I'm interested to see how it scales though in the future when more employees join.
At the end of the day, employee #1 and me retreated back to his place to rest. For dinner, we ate a local Chinese spot, called Jade Garden, down the street. Funny thing is back in the town we got a spot called Jade Garden, and it hits for dim sum/dinner(well use to). Unfortunately, they not the same. This place did not live up to the expectation the Town had put down. Oh well, there are more places up and down the street. I'll try this place again after I made my rounds. Maybe they have a better dish and I just missed it. Can't win them all.
For desert, we had bubble tea at a spot called Purple Kow for bubble tea. Twowhoo, this place goes super hard. I arbitrary selected a favor (roasted oolong or black milk tea not sure I switched at the last moment), and it was mad good. That's how hard it goes. The remaining night I enlightened myself by researching the development tools my team uses and reviewed my company's website to understand externally what other people see. The website is very simple. I like it. I do wish there was more information or at least examples of what our technology enables. Hopefully, I can help change that soon :).
In all, so far so good! I'm out here doing my damn thing. I'm allin man. My goal: to test my limits and see what I capable of and can achieve in life. Excited, hopeful, anxious, and scared, all at the same damn time. I calm my fear of failure by simply believing there is no wrong going after what you truly want.. I'm going to do my best to make myself, my family, my friends, and Seattle proud.
Every time somebody steps out on the road they bring a little Northwest soul with them, amen