My first week at Message
Written by My first week at Message was really good to be honest, everyone was really friendly and made me more than welcome (which is always a good start). I got my head around the coffee machine (which I guess is the first port of call for any new assistant) and also had the pleasure of sitting in on a couple of meetings and trying to understand how Message works.
The first day was quite tough for me. I had a lot to take in, especially with the trains running late, which is not the best start to a new job. However I managed to get to Message on time, and then was warmly welcomed, which made it all a lot easier.
I think one of the hardest things I am going to have to get to grips with is the scale of the projects that Message have on their hands. I have come from building small websites for local businesses and one man bands, to now working with a company who develop large sites for some very well known businesses, which is a very exciting, but slightly daunting step forward.
To be frank the rest of my first day was a bit of a blur. I spent most of the day watching Joe work, and trying to keep up with what he was doing, so I was as prepared as possible for the next day when my computer would be set up.
My second day at Message was slightly more eventful, again more train delays (I was beginning to see a pattern emerging), but by lunch time we had a computer for me to work with, and after spending the rest of the day installing software and downloading bits we were ready to go. I spent the last couple of hours of the day trying to familiarize myself with SweetCMS and Sitefy . A random conversation about Marmite with Lynda and Joe inspired my lunch choice for the following two days.
Finally, a direct train from Ore to Brighton which wasn't delayed, so I actually arrived on time on Wednesday, which put me in a good mood and I also had the chance to get stuck in with some real work! My first little project that I had to deal with as an assistant developer, was to decipher a captcha mechanism for the Katie Price website - which after a few small problems I managed to get up and running and in place in reasonable time (with a little help from Joe). On a slightly stranger note, Melita brought in a massive bunch of bananas.
Thursday - another on time train, I was starting to think I may have been wrong about Southern Rail?! I made my first real contribution of the week on the Rapha website, adding a low stock feature to the stock availability page, followed by a couple of tweaks on the blog pages. However, we were all slightly disappointed by the news that Katie Price would not be joining us in the office, but there is always next week I suppose.
I withdraw my earlier statement - I was definitely correct about Southern Rail. The train was 10 minutes late, and everyone at the station then watched in horror as it arrived... then went without stopping. So a very wet 25 minutes later than scheduled, I got on the train to Brighton.
Other than that, my first Friday at Message has been good so far. I have been working on the Oyster Lingerie website, which is starting to take shape and have spent the rest of the morning typing this whilst watching the video that everyone here made at Christmas ... very funny!http://www.message.co.uk/ Hopefully next week will be just as good!
Comments
Great to have you here Danny :-)
i want to win free t shirt,is the right place?
Yes, it's the right place, but you'll have to be funnier than that I'm afraid!
I may fail the security question for this post, because I suspect your bananas are brown by now ;-) (yay!! t-shirt!!)
This is a brilliantly designed site, and I would expect nothing less - good to Link up with you Jamie after all this time.
Nic, good to hear from you. Believe it or not, that qualifies for a t-shirt. Email me your postal address and I shall furnish you forthwith :-)