Stack of Forms

I went to the porter's lodge today to check on my mail. I am still waiting on several payment cheques including the cash back cheque from HP. So, I'm checking my pigeon hole regularly. But, I was surprised to see two big envelopes instead.

I opened up the one marked CONFIDENTIAL. I was curious as to what were the contents. It turned out to be the Starter Pack for new staff members. It contains a whole bunch of documents, including my new employment contract and offer letter.

I'm not sure if I should reveal the terms of my contract in my blog. So, I won't go into the details. But it's just quite interesting. The employment terms here are certainly better than the kinds you can find back home. For example, I'm not allowed to work for more than a certain number of hours each week, without signing some extra consent forms. Also, I'm given quite a lot of annual leave days. This means that I can afford to go off on a decent holiday at the end of each term. This probably also explains how my supervisors can disappear for a month, over summer.

As you can see from the photo, there are a whole bunch of documents that I'll have to pour over. The place to start is the Starter Pack, which lists all the contents of the envelope. It contains some basic instructions on what I need to fill up and what I don't. It also contains various advice, guidelines and procedures for all kinds of stuff, including disciplinary actions! Then, there's the little green booklet that contains all the requisite Occupational Health & Safety related stuff. Looks like I have a lot of reading and form filling to do over the weekend.

PS: I think that I'm going to photocopy some of the forms after I fill them up for my own copy and safekeeping. If there's one thing that I've learnt is that it's important to keep copies of these things. Oh yes, don't ask me about the pay!