Day one of southern "comfort"??

When I moved out to Tennessee, I came out sight unseen. I hadn't ever seen Johnson City, I had heard of it before only because East Tennessee State University is here (and before you get it in your mind otherwise, it does NOT make this a college town...unlike say Corvallis and even Eugene, this is still a pretty boring place with not much to do). Anyway, as I was saying...I came out here sight unseen, got here on a Sunday and had to be to work on Monday. Luckily as part of the deal to accept the job, I was put up in a decent hotel on the company dime until I found the place. So Sunday night, I drove around town, trying to get the general idea of how to get around and of course ended up getting lost. Which, I have heard is the best way to learn a new city is to go out and get lost. I say BULLSHIT. That's a good way to get frustrated and waste a bunch of gas. Because as the typical man, you know that I would rather drive around for 2 hours than to stop and get directions. The upside is that I did get to learn a bunch of the streets and roads for later use, the bad news is that I did end up in the ghetto. And yes, it was the ghetto. I wouldn't go far as to say that it was East LA ghetto, but you could definitely tell that it wasn't the part of town to get caught in after dark.

Alright, so day one of my job, I show up to the office. Mind you, the only person in that whole office that had ever seen me face to face was that manager who hired me. Every interview for the job was done over the phone. So I showed up and I didn't know that they also had happened to start a new hire class of 15 the same day. So I go to the security guard station since I didn't have a key or a code or a key card to get in to the building and tell him that I am here to start my first day. He asks my name and said that he will take me to where I need to go. He takes me to a conference room where there are 15 other people and hands me a packet of forms that looked rather familiar. As a matter of fact, the looked EXACTLY like the forms I had filled out when I first started with the company but who was I to question the security guard. It wasn't until about 30 minutes later that the manager of the office called me on my cell phone, I answered and he asked if I was having trouble finding the office. I told him where I was and he came and got me. As it turns out, those 15 people in that office were going to be my employees.

So I think I have rambled on enough now...maybe I should have titled this day one, hour one because there is more...oh yes there is more....so stay on the edge of your seats because this shit is gonna get real. OK that was about as gangsta as I get...for the most part I am only fluent in 2 languages...English and Southern. (more on that topic later as well.)