first day ✅

super lowkey first day in the NYC office! after ten years, I'm back in a satellite office.

I went to bed around 9:30pm last night so I thought it would be easy to wake up and get to the office around 9am today, but I slept all the way to 9:30am :0 and then after washing up and getting dressed, I was out the door a bit after 10.

atul on the app platform team had reached out a few weeks ago inviting me to join for coffee walk this morning. when I got there, he gathered various eng for coffee, and we all headed over. I met atul's teammates and a few other engineers.

lunch was about an hour later, and my stomach did flip flop a little nervously, despite being pretty seasoned at this first day thing now. I thought it would be impossible for someone to come get me for lunch and hoped for the next best thing, which I can't remember what I thought it would be exactly, because a bit before lunch atul did come invite me to eat together!

we sat down in the old kitchen, and soon other engineers filtered in as well. two engineers from collections came over (sebastian, an intern, and hannah, in a charcoal jacket = joined in 2025), and so did two other (asian female heh) engineers on atul's team. we talked about nyc vs sf forkable and about the financial success of the labubu founder.

and then I was pretty productive, getting out a bunch of small PRs before the weekly meeting at 11am PT, which is usually when my monday begins. around 2pm (ET), I was walking to find a meeting room for the weekly meeting when I ran into madeleine! she's full blonde these days and looks a bit unapproachable, but was actually really sweet and enthusiastic about having me in the ny office! after the meeting she reiterated that she was so happy to have me there, took me to her desk to share a cookie baked by the mail designer, and told me she loves apartment hunting and offered to do viewings for me if I needed :)

the rest of the afternoon I did some more coding, and then took some later meetings (4:30-5:30pm). victor and I jammed on consultant booking data model and he gave me an OK for the overall design.

I ended up working until 7pm, cleaning up PRs and doing some investigations on missing payouts. I made plans for this weds and thurs evening, and also july 2 lunch and july 3 food tour with nepal crew in nyc! also, my landlady texted me chastising me for leaving the apartment less than clean ;(

then I clocked out, and dropped by trader joe's and CVS on the way back. after getting back, I had snack and dinner, and now I'm about to workout with CD.

walking on the streets is just such a dream (and then I take a photo and it looks ass LOL). I actually felt that when I first moved downtown in SF too! eventually the magic wears off a bit.

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