Day 1 in the office

Today was my first day in the office. Not wanting to be late, I showed up a little before 8:30. No one was in the office. There was no receptionist; the doors were locked. I went back downstairs to hide out in a convenience store for a little while. When I went up again a little before 9, the doors had been opened. I suppose the Shanghai working hours are a little closer to New York City. The receptionist kindly let me know that no one that could help me was there yet, so I could sit in a conference room until they arrived. I plopped myself down and connected to the wireless internet, until a coworker I knew from the US stopped in and offered to walk me around to my office. He gave me the brief rundown of everything. Nothing is very different from the US, other than the fact that we have a cleaner on staff to dump out our pint-size trash cans and restock the kitchen with tea. Also, paper seems to be expensive. Notebooks are no larger than 5”x 7” and there are no pads of the graph paper that I’m used to in the US.