Don't know what to make of it yet. The tasks seem pretty straightforward; I've no doubt I'll soon get the hang of it, but I worry I may not find them challenging enough in the long run. I'm one of a team of 8, with another newbie expected to start next month so we'll be 9 in December. My colleagues are pleasant enough, though they do tend to talk about food and various ways of preparing it all day, which made me feel very hungry by the end of the day. There's a team dinner coming up, which one of them is going to cook -- he ran quite an ambitious menu by me, so ambitious I doubt I'll be able to get up from the table after having sampled all the dishes he's thinking of preparing.

I miss hp. Not Jobsworth, nor the grief he gave me, but the ambiance, and the complexity of the problems I had to find solutions for there every day. Most of all, I miss my accounts; I wonder how Gary A. is faring at RBS in the current credit crunch, or how Andrew S. likes his new job at Alcatel. Did Michael B. at Capita ever manage to give up smoking after his doctors had told him he'd be seriously unwell otherwise, or Chris N. at Corus convince his girlfriend to let him watch the footie once in a while?