Summary of First Full Week at MOS
I've completed a full week at the Museum of Science in Boston (MOS) and I'm looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. I had a nice introduction to the work culture before I even arrived for my first day when I was CC'd on an email that the director sent to our entire department introducing me in very kind words, letting everyone know when I'd be starting and suggested that people stop by during lunch to say hi. I also received some emails from a member of the department that included some kind words and helpful advice for my first day such as, "bring a sweater". These may seem like small gestures, but they are my first impression and as it's all I had to go on at the time, it made me feel optimistic about working with this team.
For my first day, the director gave me a tour of the museum campus and introduced to me quite a few people. The museum is huge; way larger than I had previously understood including a huge education wing that I had no idea existed. I come from Chicago, home of the Museum of Science and Industry and my understanding of MOS was that it was a great science museum, but that it's outreach and mission was on a much smaller scale than Chicago. While I'm still learning about MOS, I think it's safe to say that I underestimated its reach. My Chicago bias has been exposed. There is an entire department dedicated to working with other institutions. There is a library that provides science educational resources. It's quite involved in promoting education and scientific initiatives...it's great.
After getting the grand tour, I got to spend the rest of the day walking around the exhibits on my own. I tried to visit every exhibit, but I definitely spent more time in certain areas like technology and mathematics. I also got to take in a few shows and special exhibits: a special temporary exhibit A Day In Pompeii, an Omni film Greece: Secrets of the Past, a Planetarium show Undiscovered Worlds: The Search Beyond Our Sun, and the Lightening! Live Presentation in the Theater of Electricity.
For the rest of the week, I shadowed our Web Projects Manager to various meetings to meet members of other departments and get my footing on where we are in a massive web redesign project.
It's a great place doing wonderful work, a brilliant team, an interesting project (web redesign) and that only scratches the surface. I'd love to write more about everything I've learned this week; I'll hopefully manage to touch on the big topics. My general feeling right now is, "I can't believe I get to be here."
It's not all cupcakes and sprinkles though. The commute is about double what I anticipated and this last week has been hampered by purchasing a lemon of a vehicle that I thought would be a simple car to get me reliably to and from the T station. Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of problems with the car that are hopefully being fixed by the dealer (not likely...they've been awful and cheap) and I'm preparing myself to have to pursue a drawn out process for a refund. It's generally taking about an hour car drive to/from the T station and then another near hour on the T...four hours out of the day. It's a lot. I've been able to try out varying schedules and I'm liking the 8am-4pm time slot, and this'll do for a while. As much as I love and adore where I currently live, I suspect another move is in the not too distant future.