I ended up having a lunch meeting with my boss, Jason, last week. It appears that I was selected to participate in a pilot of the Peer1 Employee Exchange program. This program is designed to bring staff that normally wouldn’t get a chance to see each other in person together, and from those experiences gain and bring back perspective about how the other departments, lines of business, and offices operate. It is the hope of Peer1 management that if this program is successful in strengthening relations between the offices, that they will launch it into a full program.
In the pilot program, they have selected two staff members to travel to another office, learn everything they can about what makes that office tick, and then bring it back with them to their home office. I have been selected to go to ServerBeach’s head office in San Antonio, TX. It should be a blast. I already have a working relationship with a couple people down there, and I’ve never been to Texas. Well, actually I’ve never been anywhere in the states other than to Seattle, and the few hours I was in LAX on lay-overs during my trip to Australia.
So! I’ll be in San Antonio from April 19th to the 25th. Go raise a little hell there for a week (to a point — had to promise the boss I’d be on my best behaviour 
), and come home. I’ll probably be tweeting/blogging like crazy, partially because it’s part of my agreement with the company to be able to go!
In other work news, I’m finished up another night rotation. I’m looking forward to going back onto day shift. I’m looking forward to being able to work on all my little side projects now, while not losing tons of sleep or flipping back and forth nights to days and back, on my days off.
Lots of exciting things coming down the pipe!
Out Of Office
The below was cross-posted to the Peer1 Internal Staff site, as part of my participation in the Peer1 Employee Exchange Program.
Hey Peer1,
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Christoph Blecker, and I’m a Network Analyst working in the Vancouver NOC. I was chosen to be the first participant in the new Peer1 Employee Exchange program, and am spending this whole week in the ServerBeach San Antonio office. I’ll be spending the majority of the time with the SB Support Team, headed up by Mark Melin.
It’s been a fun week so far. By sheer coincidence, I’m not the only person starting in SAT support this week. Jim Park, formerly of Los Angeles DCO roots, picked up and moved down to Texas last weekend. This is his first week working as a Support Specialist on the San Antonio support team. We are both learning the ropes of this office together.
So far I’ve spent time shadowing a few different members of the support team:
- Brenda C. in doing Support Level 1
- Jayson A. doing Support Level 2
- Stephanie D. doing Billing
- Allison H. doing Winback/Cancellations
I’ve also put tons of names and faces together, as well as collected a much deeper insight into the scope of issues that crop up at The Beach. Holy Plesk issues, Batman!
I’ve also been able to sample local cuisine. Breakfast Tacos? Beef and Cheese Enchiladas? Yummm! Much better than Taco Bell (the extent of my previous Mexican experience)! So far so good! I’m getting comfortable down here now, which isn’t that where the fun begins?
The other big thing I’ve noticed is the heat. I’m a Canadian. I’m most comfortable in that 17-20C (62-68F) range. It’s been up to 101F (38C) at the peak this week. I’m not down with that. At all. Thankfully the beach is kept at a nice, cool temperature. Safe to say, I’ve been huddling inside.
More to come!