New Role

The last I wrote was about the starting of my new role.  I was tossed into the deep end and had to make sense of a live environment in Malaysia.  Prior to boarding a flight with my boss and a co-worker for the red-eye flight to Singapore, I was handed my company laptop and a stack of induction paperwork.  This was at 11 pm on the night prior to my first official day.  Little did I know, but I would be going full throttle all week and it doesn't stop there.

KLIA Terminal 2

I slept almost the entire flight to Singapore only waking momentarily to eat some food.  I was told that we were going to maximize our time on site so we would most likely go right to the site.  What is this site?  It is the new KLIA terminal that is scheduled to be opened in May. So what are we doing here?  We are installing the baggage controlling system.  This means all the physical aspects including conveyor belts, sorters, and scanners, as well as the software to manage the entire operation from a control room.  I'm currently getting very familiar with all the data being produced for the site.  I'm working with all the BI and database development with very little understanding of the environment.  As I'm doing trouble shooting, I have an end point to work back from and I've gained a much better understanding of the data structures in my first 50+ hrs on the job.

The Control Room

There was no exploring of Kuala Lumpur as I would have liked, but I was there to work first and play second.  The days were long and I hardly moved from the control room.  That had some benefits as the temperature was in the 90s and very humid.  This played some havoc in my training schedule as I didn't have a pool or bike, but I did get out and do some predawn runs where the temp was still in the high 70s.  I had some tasty eats while there, but the curry balls and the venison curry probably rank the tastiest. 

Venison Curry was still in the kitchen

My 2nd week was actually in the office.  I drove to work the first day as I had my laptop to get to the office, but since then I've been doing the commute on my bike (approximately 10 miles a day).  Its a good ride uphill that requires a cold shower before starting my day.  I'm currently working on several projects.  I'll probably talk in reference to location to keep things straight.  KL is having site acceptance testing 6/1-8/1, so I'll be adjusting my hours to reflect their business hours.  STL is looking to have some changes done to appease the TSA and Perth is going to have a factory acceptance test next week.  I'll be busy getting their environment up and running as the data warehouse scripts haven't been written nor the SSAS cubes.  However, there are 2 students doing an internrship that I get to assist with some of the report writing.  I've also started to study for the MSCE: Data Platform exams.  There are 5 of them and at our final team meeting (my first meeting) the expectation for all of the development team was to have the exams done by March.  I'm going to be a busy guy with my training and studying.