It is always nerve-racking coming into a new company and trying to break the ice. Ensuring that new employees feel comfortable is crucial to building a positive transition within a company. We thought it would be fun to ask Alex a few questions to get to know him a little better.
Q: What is your official work title?
A: Systems Support Specialist
Q: Can you tell us more about your professional experience/history?
A: I worked for several years in a physics lab on particle research, which kickstarted my learning computational skills. I bounced around a bit after that, and at one point worked for a while at a store that sold candles, oils, incense, crystals, etc. That job smelled delightful.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
A: Knitting/crocheting, baking, reading, watching movies. Aspiring to the hobbit life. A lot of Dungeons and Dragons, which is probably not surprising given the previous sentence...
Q: What is your greatest travel experience?
A: A tie between sailing in the Florida Keys and canoeing in the boundary waters in Canada. The former was an idyllic, lounging trip full of fish so fresh it still had dinner plans of its own, snorkeling, and cool ocean breezes. The latter was an adventurous battle against storms, four-foot waves, and a leaky canoe (we won the battle, but nearly lost the canoe).
Q: Favorite movie?
A: John Carpenter's The Thing. A masterpiece of stunning practical effects, perfect pacing and the building of piano-wire tension, and a rugged and ice-encrusted Kurt Russel. What more could you want in a movie? Also, one of the best dog actors I've ever seen.
Q: Guilty pleasure music artist?
A: I don't feel guilty about music I like; if I like it then it's cool. That being said, I'm pretty sure I am the only person I know who honestly, wholeheartedly loves All-Star by Smashmouth. Now that I think about it, the same can be said for Call Me Maybe. Man, now I want to listen to both of those...
Q: What is something that inspires you?
A: Stories in which someone, through difficult studies, makes some breakthrough that will do something amazing / save the world / stop some terrible evil (depends on the genre). They always make me want to go fling myself into studying and tinkering and try to do something amazing myself.
Q: What would you say your professional goal would be now that you are employed at Percipia?
A: Having never worked with telephony software before, I find myself faced with so very much to learn, and I intend to absorb as much knowledge and experience as I can, not only to become as useful as possible in my position, but also just for the sheer pleasure of acquiring knowledge for its own sake.
