The Buhner.com Blog

There’s a level of uncertainty when you start a new job.  Outside of the obvious nervousness of change (the process of changing jobs is one of the most stressful things that can happen to you), there are other factors to consider:

• Will I mesh with the other employees?  Generally, your personality at work is an adaptation to the people you work around.  If you’ve been working in an office for several years, you generally know how to act around people in the office.  Some people may be more serious, while others you might consider sexual harassment claims against if you didn’t know it was all in jest.  This knowledge is gained over time, and when you switch to a new job, you have to start all over again.  The coworker who seems like a stick in the mud may actually be one of the most easy-going people you’ll meet in the company.  But it takes time to learn that, and while you’re waiting to fiugure that out you find yourself acting differently than you normally would to “feel out” that coworker.  Of course, acting differently than you normally would is a cause of stress.  But don’t feel too bad; there’s a good possibility that the coworker you’re trying to hard to impress is actually as stressed out as you are, trying to be something that he/she isn’t as well, and doesn’t want to “set a bad example” by making jokes or not working hard enough for beads of sweat to drip down their forehead.
• What is expected of me?  One of the other issues with starting a new job is actually figuring out what you’re going to do.  You may have gotten a list of “duties” in the job description, but a lot of these are placed there “just in case”.  You may only do inventory once a year, and it might just be the closet in the back of your office, but in that job description it might say “does inventory on an ‘as-needed’ basis.”  So going into a job within the first few days, you might find yourself with a lot less work than you expected.  Think of it this way: if your boss came to you and asked you to describe your job, would you write a few things that you do all the time, or would you make sure to put every single thing down to show how much you work and how valuable you are to the team?  News flash: many of the job descriptions you read in classified ads are written by the employees that formally filled them.
  On the flipside, you’ll also run into jobs that don’t necessarily have accurate job descriptions.  You’ll generally find these in smaller companies.  While you may have been hired to be the accounts receivable person, don’t be surprised to find yourself acting as the receptionist, working sales, running out to buy office supplies, and various other odd jobs around the office.  The words “everyone helps out here” during an interview should raise a flag.  While it generally is innocent, it can be the calling card of a boss who wants to cut corners and use the employees he has for everything instead of hiring one more person or spending an extra few bucks on delivery charges.
• Will I like it here?  As mentioned before, changing jobs can be one of the most stressful things you can do.  Even in an ideal job changing situation (smaller commute, more money, less stressful work conditions), there’s still the uncertainity and feeling in process mentioned above.  So early on in the process, you’re going to have to take a look around you and ask yourself “do I want to be here in two years?”  Obviously, if you’re working a contract position this doesn’t apply, but if you’re hired for a full time job, you have to figure out within the first few months whether you’re going to be happy there or not.  Within the first few weeks it’s too early to tell.  There’s going to be an initial resistance to your new job because it is new, and as we all know change is bad.  Plus, companies can have a bad week or month.  Things that are completely out of your control (and out of your superior’s control) might be happening within the company, and the “mountain of shit” theory says that if someone high up in the company is catching hell, it’s going to get passed down the heirarchy until it eventually hits you.  There’s also the possibility that your hire wasn’t necessarily looked upon as favorable by your coworkers.  By bringing in someone new, people tend to fear for their own job security whether it be because the new person might potentially be your replacement, or the new person might do such a high level of work that it makes the rest of the employees look bad.  It’s a fine line to walk, but once you spend a little time with the company, you can generally get people to open up about the place and get to the truth.  From there, you have to make a decision, because the longer you spend with a company, the harder it is to leave.

It’s a lot of things to consider, but bear in mind you’re already considering them whether you know it or not every day you go to a new job.  You’re adapting to your environment, and more than likely after a few months, you’ll know what to do.

One of the major differences that we’ve experienced since moving down to NC is food.  Understand that Tara and I both appreciate food, and that one of the joys we get out of vacationing is going to local grocery stores to ”see what’s different”.  It’s on several different levels here though.

For instance, barbeque.  One of the things I looked forward to most moving down here is getting “real” barbeque.  Mind you, it’s not Kansas City here or anything, but in New York, anything in a ketchup based sauce (or in reality, anything cooked on a grill) can be considered barbeque.  Not so in North Carolina, and for my family (who don’t watch Food Network or anything), it’s an adjustment.  NC barbeque, first off, is pulled pork.  And it’s just that - “barbeque”.  It’s not barbeque pork, or pulled pork, but barbeque.  After that, NC barbeque “sauce” is a vinegar and pepper flake based sauce, that on first appearence looks dry.  When you get a pint of barbeque at Smithfield’s you get what looks like a tub of dried pulled pork.  The same tub up north would be dripping in burgandy sauce and probably stain your shirt.  But the sauce is there, and (depending on the location) gives the pork a bite of vinegar.  I eventually want to try some without the sauce and just get to the smoke - that’s what I want my barbeque to taste like.

Now, “Carolina Style barbeque” is described above.  A hamburger or hot dog “Carolina Style” has absolutely nothing to do with that.  Ask for a burger “Carolina Style” and you’ll get a hamburger with mustard, grilled onion, chili, and cole slaw.  All together.  For those of you who’ve never had, it’s surprisingly good.  The cole slaw is generally shredded and diced (say like KFC slaw without any big pieces of cabbage) and works well enough as a condiment.  The chili is a more meat based chili that (at least where I’ve had it) is closer to something you’d get at Taco Bell than a red sauced kidney bean having mixture.  Interestingly enough, Wendy’s has embraced the Carolina Style burger (dubbing it the “Carolina Classic”) and you can buy one at any Wendy’s here.

Moving onto fast food, understand that we moved from the Hamptons (which only had a McDonalds and Burger King in somewhat proximity, with the outsiders like KFC and Taco Bell a special half hour trip away) and into fast food heaven here.  There’s a Wendy’s down the road, still technically in the subdivision that we live in.  Also within close proximity (say within a less than 10 minute drive) is Chick-Fil-A, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, Jersey Mikes, Subway, Quiznos, Sonic, and Hardee’s, not to mention the delivery capabilities of Papa John’s and Dominos and two Chinese take-out places that charge a fraction of what the places by us charged.  But really the jewel in all of this is a place called Dream Burgers down Capitol Blvd.  Located between 540 and 440, Dream Burgers looks like a chain, although I’ve never seen another one (and there’s no references to the place ANYWHERE online, outside of a chick’s MySpace profile and health inspection reports), with their logo and building design.  The burgers and fries (important) are fresh made, and remind me a lot of In-And-Out, which I’ll never see again until we go back to Vegas.  The interior of the place has a lot of flat screen TVs playing various movies (muted, so you see captions), which is somewhat amusing because not all the movies being played (at the time I went) were G-rated; with Save The Last Dance playing on one TV, there was an explitive-laden tirade that was nicely written out for the Dream Burgers’ dine-in clients.  The food is made to order and takes a little time, so when eating there you sit at the table with drinks and they bring the food to you when ready.  At the same time, they also have a drive-thru, which I wouldn’t think would make as much sense with any time saved going through the drive-thru is wasted by sitting in line, waiting for your food to be cooked.  Dream Burgers gives the option of ordering your burger “Wild Style”, which is a variation of the “Carolina Style” using only the mustard and grilled onions, while regular burgers get sliced raw onion.

The mustard issue (Dream Burgers say that the “Wild Style” burgers are “mustard grilled”, whatever that means) is something as a Long Islander I didn’t have to deal with.  Apparently in 99% of the country, a typical fast food hamburger is topped with onion, ketchup, mustard, and pickle.  On Long Island (and only Long Island, apparently), there is no mustard on a hamburger.  It’s an unwritten rule.  When I was 14 and worked at McDonalds, every training film showed mustard being put onto the burger, but there was never mustard on a Long Island fast food hamburger, whether it was McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy’s.  I remember specificly having a hatred for mustard when I was younger and having to remember when we went on vacation to specificly ask for “no mustard” when we went to get fast food.  I’m still not sure why it’s only Long Island, but it’s very much in effect, and not just a single franchise’s policy or anything.

Finally, let me wrap this up back at the drive-thru.  I already mentioned Dream Burgers slow drive-thru and justified it with their freshly made food.  However, now having dealt with a decent amount of fast food drive-thrus here, I’ve just come to the conclusion that - while seemingly everyone you meet around here isn’t local to the area - Southern-style laid back approaches still do exist, at least when it comes to “fast food”.  There are a good number of McDonalds on the Island that offer a “60 Second Guarantee”; if you have to wait more than 60 seconds from the time you pay to the time you’re given your food, you get some kind of free product.  There are even digital countdowns so that you don’t have to pull out your own watch and time them.  Usually, by the time you get to the second window the person already has the bag waiting for you.  Not so in North Carolina.  Between the McDonalds in Wakefield that never seems to have McNuggets ready (thanks, my kid is screaming - just drop the damn nuggets) to the KFC we went to for a bucket of chicken that had to give us half crispy/half original because they were still making chicken, despite it being 5:30PM and seemingly when their dinner rush would be starting and they weren’t busy in the slightest.

Side entertaining story from that KFC trip: woman came in while we were waiting for our chicken all pissed off.  Apparently she had gone through the drive-thru and ordered popcorn chicken.  They had told her that the chicken would be ready in “two minutes”, but the chicken wasn’t ready yet.  She came in demanding to know when the chicken would be ready, and with the two people working there (one cooking, one working the register) essentually hiding from her knowing that their “estimate” was wrong and she was pissed and not wanting to get reamed, they instead just got her more and more pissed off as she kept asking how long the popcorn chicken would take.  Eventually she started yelling out “I DEMAND TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED”, which just sounds really funny coming from someone with a southern twang.  I know I’ll be annoying my wife with that one for the next few months or so.