New Job, Sort of

So today has been an interesting day. My company has been bought out by Symantec (it was announced in January, but became official last Friday). Today we had a 3-hour orientation that frankly left me quite confused. There was a lot of information to go over and a lot of Web sites reviewed that I can't remember (although now that I'm back at my desk and able to go through them, I'm starting to get where everything is).

In some ways, I'm really excited about this opportunity. With a bigger company comes the ability to do more. I'm also excited to see how professional their style guide is and I'm pleased that most of their decisions are in line with Altiris' Style Guide (which I helped to create).

In terms of benefits, there are ups and downs, but I think there are more ups. The insurance is like 4 times as much, but we had just about the cheapest insurance ever, so it's still not that bad, and they cover SO much. Plus, because of the transition, we're basically getting 2 months of free insurance (we're already on Symantec's payroll, yet we're still covered by the insurance through Altiris till the end of the month. So our pay isn't being deducted for the insurance. And we have till the end of May to sign up for insurance through Symantec, even though we'll be covered on May 1, no matter when we sign up (retroactively). Even so, they said they wouldn't deduct our wages retroactively, thus giving ustwo months of free health insurance). Additionally, even though the insurance is more, they'll be reimbursing us quarterly for the difference between the old insurance and the new insurance until the end of the year (since when we signed up last December, it was supposedly for a whole year), so we won't really be paying the higher premiums till next year. I still think they're rather reasonable (between $216 and $288 a month for a family, only $27/month for an employee only).

They also have cool benefits, like if you join a gym, they'll reimburse you up to $69/quarter for the costs (I haven't found out yet if they'll reimburse me, even though I prepaid for a two-year membership, but if they do, that'd be so cool). I also found out that they have paid maternity leave. I'm not sure how long I would get, if I were to have a baby while working here, but it's nice to know it would be paid (I was worrying that I'd have to use whatever vacation I had accrued and then go back to work).

One of the things I'm really disappointed about is I believe they said Timponogas hospital is not covered, which is the closest and nicest hospital in the area.

So, an interesting day overall.