First day @ Ipsos
Sunday — marked my first day of work at Ipsos Dubai.
With a rush of excitement, I was awakened at 3:00 in the morning with the feeling that I have slept quite long enough, and I don’t want to be late on my first day. I got up at 6:30 AM to make sure I am well pampered before 8:00.
I arrived just on time in the office, a quarter before 9:00 O’clock after almost a 30-minute commute. To my surprise, I am earlier than I was expecting as people started coming in between the hours of 9:00 to 10:00. I had to wait in the next hour in the office lobby for the person I am assigned to report, the Account Manager, Maria Soto.
After some time in the lobby, I met the HR Manager Stella and Juliet whom I have communicated with during the entire employment process. They were both warm and welcoming. Juliet then assisted me with the contract signing and introduced me to the office place. She also helped me to settle with my working space and arranged my laptop and office supplies to use — she is very encouraging.
I was also greeted by Andre Youssef, the VP of Media Monitoring at Ipsos. He is the person who pushed me through this new opportunity with his team — he is indeed very reassuring.
Next, I met the rest of my team, Ran — the Project Manager, Erin — the Developer, and Daniel- the Client guy. All of them welcomed me comfortably. And since I’ll be joining all gents group, I’m a bit meeker. But they don’t seem hard to get along with, time will tell.
And of course — meeting my buddy, Ayman! He hasn’t changed a lot. Funny we’ll be working again in a company we used to regard as a competition. He is my key to this company, I should say.
The rest of my half-day was spent reading through the lengthy guidelines and policies of the company — good thing I am a fan of reading, it wasn’t a dilemma at all.
During the lunch break, Ayman treated me to a wonderful Lebanese cuisine as his way of welcoming me on my first day — silly! We ate at the office’s pantry with two other guys whom Ayman introduced me to as well — Hassan and Mohammad (if I got their names right, HAHA). Both were polite and warm. It was a great first lunch at the office indeed — thanks to Ayman!
Back to my desk, I continued with the rest of the reading — devouring with all the company materials. And since Maria Soto didn’t show up as, unfortunately, she was reported sick during the day, my first day eventually was wrapped-up reading — no sweat.
Well, I am just as excited yet for tomorrow.
