^^^ +1.

And congrats on the job!

I actually don't start until August 28th, so this coming Monday. I would have started mid July but I already had a 2 week trip planned out of the country which I returned from today so was able to start after instead of having to leave 2 weeks in.

I definitely want to keep writing and will post up as much as I can in here.

Thanks man!

Been looking into crypto a lot lately. After a lot of researching and hemming and hawing for a long time finally decided to jump in. Anyone looking to sell btc pm me.

Completed ~$4.3k BTC sale w/ Cushlash ez pz. Enjoy the new job!

Thanks! And thanks for the smooth sale, the ride since then, not so smooth haha

Long overdue job update post. So I'm one week in to the new gig. First 2 days were just a corporate orientation. I felt like this could easily have been 1 day or even half a day based on how much practical info was involved, but I understand why they do it the way they do. A lot of stuff had to do with customer-facing positions and I essentially never have to step foot in an area with customers to do my job so that stuff was more or less irrelevant for me.

It was great to actually get to my office and meet the people I was working with though. Everyone was really nice and helpful and the office culture seems quite a bit more positive than the poker room from my limited sample size. I'm sure there will be some negative stuff down the line but overall I'm still pretty confident it will be better.

The main thing I'm really trying to look out for is my health. Its a lot of sitting, as with poker. However, I'll have a lot less free time so it may be easy to shirk off my exercise routine as I go along. Less time also means a higher propensity to eat ****ty food when its more convenient. I definitely need to watch out for the donuts and snacks in the office as I am not great with willpower. My strategy for not eating **** is not keeping **** around the house, but when its there and free I am not good at resisting.

As far as the actual job is concerned, I'm still fairly new and have to learn a bunch before I have things figured out and can be useful. It's all numbers-based stuff using Excel and some programming that I am unfamiliar with. Without getting into a boring technical explanation, essentially our job is to predict the performance of promotions based on the performance of similar promotions in the past using data. There are obviously lots of details but that is the gist of it.

Start my second week tomorrow. Because of Labor Day its a short week but I expect I'll be learning quite a bit once I get more familiar with things.

Do you hafta wear a suit? SPC guesses no? I am going with yes although unsure. We are wagering on your response!!

Haha no suit, business casual.

dammit - i am such a prop betting fish!

Business casual these days = a business suit in the older days . . . so I think that Walt's bet is a push.

Actually, the job sounds kind of interesting. Analyzing data, making predictions - that sounds a lot like poker. I bet that once in a while, even a prediction gets a bad beat.

There are some similarities to the math part of poker. I'm sure that will happen sometimes, haven't been at it long enough yet to get results on any of my predictions haha

I have been meaning to post more updates but for the first time in a very long time, I don't really have much free time. That's been far and away the hardest part of transitioning to this job and I've done pretty horribly so far at keeping up with a few things. I haven't worked out nearly as much as I want to. I keep trying to get it done in the morning but sleep has been taking precedence. After work I either have commitments or have errands and stuff to do so its not realistic to be able to consistently do it then, though I have a few times. The problem is I end up getting to bed too late to be up early enough to get a workout in and the cycle keeps repeating. This will be the main thing I work on the next few weeks until I can consistently get on a good routine.

I've also been dealing with a lot of administrative stuff that goes along with starting a new job, like switching health insurance and whatnot so that has taken some time.

Weekends feel eerily similar to when I was in high school. Any recreation type activities are packed into 2 days. I also haven't really gone in to play poker at all, not necessarily because I don't want to, but because when I'm working all week I'd rather spend time with the gf and chill on weekends.

The job itself is alright, definitely not overly inspiring. In some ways my feelings towards it are similar to poker in that I don't necessarily feel like I'm making any sort of positive contribution towards society. However, I am learning some valuable skills that may help me do something more personally meaningful in the future. The culture/atmosphere is also a million times better. People are basically all nice, there are fun things planned in and out of the office, and its very team-oriented.

Though I am learning some new technical stuff, I think the real value that I'll get out of this experience is in the soft skills I'm building/rekindling. My time management is going to have to get a lot better if I'm going to be able to work 40 hrs a week and continue to get the stuff done on the side I want to get done like exercising, reading, investment research, some non-zero amount of poker, and social/fun stuff. I used to have 6-8 classes, sports after school, part time jobs on the weekends and other scattered academic commitments throughout the week. I got everything done and achieved success in basically all those areas. So I know I am capable of this too. This is actually probably still less than what I was doing at 16/17. I just need to retrain myself to be more efficient. To me this means getting straight with my priorities and acting decisively. While still in poker I held myself back with massive amounts of paralysis by analysis and there's just no room for that now if I'm going to do the things I want. It will likely take some time but my hope is that this job helps me to work on that weakness so that it isn't a problem in the future, regardless of what I'm doing for a living.

Basically looking to rekindle my work ethic, improve time management, and work on my tendency to overthink things and spend too much time making relatively trivial decisions.

All in all though so far its been pretty good. I knew it would be a tough transition so the fact that I have a few things to work on is to be expected. I'm pretty confident that regardless of what I'm doing in 5 or 10 years I'll be thankful for making the decision I did even though parts of it haven't been easy.

Ive already seen so many stories on 2+2 of people transitioning from paycheck to grinding, I'm interested about your transition from grinding to paycheck. I'm guessing there will be some large adjustments, sounds like you have good plan for handling it. GL

It was nice to read the update. At my work I am currently in the last busy rush of the season (7 days a week for 3 weeks straight and long days all 7 days), so I can clearly relate to maximizing your time management skills. I assure you with your agile mind those skills will come back and be much better than the high school days.

Your point about the soft skills being a source of real value is spot on.

Looking forward to the next time you have an opportunity to post.

Thanks! Yea I definitely am going the opposite direction of most of the threads in here. Big adjustment for sure but its a learning experience.

Yea I can't imagine having that kind of schedule, still need to get used to this first. Hope your busy rush has calmed down some for you.

Trying to get more posts up here but my main struggle I mentioned in the last post, time, has limited how much I've been able to post. I'm getting into a better schedule somewhat as far as sleeping goes, but have yet to figure out a way to get in my desired amount of physical activity. Sitting at a desk 8 hours a day isn't all that conducive to living a healthy lifestyle and I can tell it starting to take its toll so I need to make it a priority to get out in front of it.

My original plan was to wake up early enough to be able to workout but that doesn't seem to be a viable option. I don't seem to do well with jumping out of bed and immediately starting exercising with any kind of intensity. I tried it a few times in the past couple weeks and it just makes me feel awful for days. My super unscientific theory is that my body/muscles aren't ready for that right away in the morning even if I take the time to warm up. I also have always done my exercise in the late morning early afternoon so its possible I just need to get used to it. Luckily I was able to get some light cardio and stretching this weekend so I don't feel like a total slob, but this is an area I for sure need to work on.

An unexpected negative of working in a cubicle office that I've noticed is dealing with a lot of outside noise. Pretty often there are other conversations happening around me and it can be pretty distracting when I'm trying to focus on something but can't help but hear other people's conversations. I read in an article a while back that this causes slightly increased stress for cubicle employees because they are constantly having to fight these distractions and deal with "noise pollution". I have definitely noticed that my baseline stress level is higher, and this could be one of the contributing factors. This also probably contributes to me being tired after work even on days I don't have a ton of stuff to do. Dealing with distractions/high levels of stimulation saps my energy fairly quickly, particularly as an introvert. I probably need to look into getting some noise cancelling headphones or something. Probably won't be able to have them in all the time but would still likely be useful.

Other people have also told me that I seem a bit more stressed than I used to be. I have been particularly impatient while driving. I think this is because I have such limited time now that I don't want to waste any of it in traffic. Having a 9-5 has certainly given me some insights into how other people with normal jobs act, certain aspects of which always seemed to confuse me. I don't necessarily know how I feel about it. Obviously I'm new so with some time and effort I should be able to get better with it. Lots of people have said to me that I'll "get used to it". However, if its a net negative on my life its not something I want to get used to. I could probably get used to lots of things, but that doesn't necessarily mean I should get used to them.

I'm happy to be where I'm at currently and taking a job was exactly what I needed to do. That said, some of the downsides of the 9-5 lifestyle are a great motivating factor to make something more entrepreneurial happen; something that is more scale-able than poker. While playing poker I was able to be much more complacent for some reason. I suppose it comes down to the fact that for me having a salary and very limited free time is more motivating than having all the free time I want but not making that much money. Now when I work on side projects I feel like I'm doing it to gain time whereas before I was doing it to gain money. More evidence that time>money.

Nice to see that you are transitioning to a work schedule. Change is not easy, if it is that easy it won't be called as change.

To get a work out, going to the gym is not the only option. You can get some walking/running done near your work. If you are working on a PC or a Laptop try to get one of those stand and work equipment (the one where you can change from sitting to standing).

Hopefully the work part would become more exciting and will keep your interest and excitement intact. Hopefully the job will move you to an office space and mitigate the distractions.

Very cool updates!

I think you should definitely try to keep this thread going, because so many people on 2+2 are struggling with either one end of this issue or the other.

Namely, whether to go pro at poker or for some it's whether to try and transition out of poker and back into the 9/5 workforce.

This thread shows both sides of the coin and is super helpful and interesting to use as a comparison to show pros and cons of the decisions.

I could see it eventually going back to you returning to poker someday with a whole new perspective, too! Am interested to see where this leads...best of luck and thanks for documenting it.

Thanks Cushlash - The 16th of October was the last day of the big rush. Life is back to normal.

Might be a small thing but I take the stairs everyday instead of the elevator. I have to park on a high level so this is 6-8 flights of stairs round trip every day. Not a ton but its something.

We have the standing desks, I've been on the list to get one since my first day but its a big company and stuff can take a while sometimes. I followed up yesterday and should be any day now.

People much further up the ladder are still in the same environment as I am so I don't see myself getting out of the cubicle area any time soon. I think getting some noise cancelling headphones is likely my best option.

Thanks! Glad to hear some actually want to hear about the 9-5 transition which, quite frankly, I expected to be boring to write/read about. Pleasantly surprised to know that at least for some that's not the case.

Returning to poker is within the realm of possibility, with a caveat. I think its highly unlikely that I go back to grinding as my main/sole source of income. However, if somewhere down the line I get some traction with a side project that begins to produce a significant source of income, I can certainly see myself leaving the job-sphere and combining whatever side project it is with a part-time grind schedule to fill in the gaps.

Thanks again for the kind words!

Nice!

I was chatting with a co-worker of mine yesterday as we were walking into the office and he asked me generally how I was liking things so far. I essentially said something along the lines of "So far so good", not really having anything specific to say one way or another. He commented on how working at big companies like this can sometimes be frustrating because of how slowly things get done from an administrative standpoint. IT support, he mentioned, is a lot slower here than other places he's worked.

He definitely has a point, and it sort of got me thinking. As mentioned before, I've been on a list for a standing desk since my first day and still nothing. Another member of my team has been here a month longer than me and is in the same boat. I probably could have ordered one on Amazon and had it within a few days, but since I was informed the company provides them I figured I'll just wait.

Similarly, I had an issue with getting set up with our in-house messaging app when I first started. Sometime in week 3 or 4 I finally had an account. All they had to do was add me to the system, my request just kept getting lost in the shuffle.

None of this is a dig on the company, I think its just a byproduct of it being so big. This size comes with some advantages I'm sure, but it also means certain things are slow to happen, an issue commonly bucketed under the "red tape" idiom.

Because the company is so big, very few individuals are really responsible for or knowledgeable of big parts of it. This means that you might have to ask around for several departments to find the person with the information you need. As an example, just the analytics department alone is huge, and we all do slightly different things and have access to slightly different information. I might be able to get you data on something, but you might need to ask a different person for something related and extremely similar but that I just don't have. Then there's a separate finance department and a separate accounting department, each of which likely having smaller sub-departments within them. Analytics, finance and accounting all seem similar and related from a layman's perspective but you'd need to go to an entire different set of people for information on each one.

The company is just so big that jobs have become specialized because there's enough work to do for an entire person to be needed for something very specific. Its almost like the corporate office equivalent of an assembly line. Maybe I put the right headlight on a specific make and model of car. In a smaller car company I might have to build the entire car or at least a sizeable chunk of it, but this one is so big and we have to make so many cars that all I really need to know is how to put that right headlight on. How do you put the bulb in? That's Jim's job. What about the tail lights? Different department. Who paints the car? We send it to the dashboard guy after we're done, no idea when the painting even happens or where or by whom.

Its like that, but in an office. We all have our niche. In a big company this is necessary to be able to operate effectively, but there's no doubt that it also creates some inefficiencies. I certainly don't mean this as a criticism as some level of this is probably unavoidable in a company of this size, it was just an aspect of working at a big company that I was thinking about and thought I'd share.

I had a reasonably good week and seem to be settling in a bit with the transition. Though I'm still tired more frequently than I'm used to, I'm finding myself with more time as I learn the best ways to plan my days based on what needs to get done and doing them at the times that are most efficient. Its not unlike when I first moved to Vegas and started with poker. In the first few months I burned tons of time driving, parking and walking the strip before I figured out the best places to play, how to get there the fastest, where to park, where to eat, etc. Still, I expect dealing with having a more rigid schedule will continue to be a work in progress for quite some time.

Aside from the day-to-day aspect, one of my big concerns with starting a 9-5 was the lack of schedule freedom as it relates to going back home to visit family for the holidays and such. Luckily it seems I've gotten quite lucky in this regard as my team is pretty laid back and have been more than willing to be flexible and made it essentially a non-issue, which is great. As it relates to this type of thing its probably an advantage that I'm essentially on the bottom of the ladder and not exactly essential on a day-to-day basis. I'm fairly confident this would present some issues if I wanted to move up to some of the higher paid positions, whether in this company or otherwise, which generally come with more demanding responsibilities. However, there's no reason to get ahead of myself because climbing the corporate ladder is not one of the reasons I took the job in the first place so its really a moot point. While this would present some long-term problems, I don't plan to be grinding the 9-5 long enough for those problems to come to fruition, its just another aspect of life in the job-sphere that I was pondering.

It actually looks like you are identifying things that would allow the organization to run more efficiently and perhaps with less cost. As you understand more about the company you will be able to sort out which of your things will actually work, which won't, which can be done now and which will require a preparatory period. At some point the opportunity will come where you can present these ideas and be heard. I think that there will a certain satisfaction at that moment.

Cush - your an ant in big old fire ant pile.....accept that and you will do better....

Not a bad thing but accept that your a worker bee.....a soldier ant.....

Meet a sweet young juicy gal, marry her, grind out the next few decades, invest well, and in the blink of an eye you will be looking to retire "early" at age 60......

EZ game......

Once in a while something comes along that is fun, challenging and pays very well; maybe even makes the world a little bit better. The trick is that you have to be in position to be presented with that opportunity in the first place, and you have to be perceived as being capable of getting it done. I believe that Cush is smart and innovative, he is now starting the process of putting himself in good luck's way.

Curious, does anyone at your company ever telecommute or is that something you think you could ever negotiate?

Say, where they let you do one day a week from home? Would allow for more freedom, travel, etc.