first semi-day of work

[quietann]

It was just HR orientation, but my new job started today. Things of note:

1. My door-to-door commuting time is just over an hour. I need to be sure to leave the house early enough in the morning so I don't miss my train if I get stuck behind a school bus.
   
   
2. I need to know where the good/cheap/ not-likely-to-give-me-food-poisoning/ not-likely-to-try-to-pass-off-pigeon-as-some-other-meat places to eat lunch are in Chinatown, since I will be working a block away.
   
   
3. Apparently the street around the corner from the building I work in turns into a major red-light district at night; I have been advised to get a security escort to the T if I am at work past 7 p.m., so as to avoid getting robbed by some horny, broke guy looking for money to pay for a blow-job or equivalent.
   
   
4. I start accumulating vacation time right away, but don't get to use it until late July. This puts a major wrinkle in some plans I had for the summer, unless it turns out to be OK to take a one-week unpaid leave. Grumble. I *will* have a personal day to use for travel to a con or something.
   
   
5. There was this annoying woman in the HR orientation whose main attitude seemed to be that the *very* generous benefits package offered by Tufts was deficient in all sorts of ways.
   
   
6. Is there any particular reason why I should prefer to invest my retirement money with Fidelity instead of TIAA-CREF? Tufts gives TIAA-CREF as the default, but almost everyone else in the orientation wanted to take the Fidelity option instead. (I already have accounts with both, and TIAA-CREF has been better to me in several ways.)
   
   

Tomorrow, the real work begins.

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Adam & I eat at Buddha's Delight a lot. They have some really marvellous lunch specials - some of which dance on the edges of my spice tolerance, some of which are mild enough that Adam can eat them.

Next time I'm in town, I'll scout out the little holes in the wall I went to before I started keeping kosher and let you know their addresses. I've never had a bad experience in Chinatown, though. And by all means do go to Maxim's Cafe. Cheap, fast, and good, all at once. No atmosphere though. Just pastries and coffee.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Oops. Sorry about that. Teach me to post without proofreading.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Check out the Chinatown Eatery at 44-46 Beach Street. It's a small food court with a variety of Asian lunch counters.

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

Rachie likes the pho place across the street from you. They do takeout pho kits. The upstairs eatery is also good (when they get their pipes fixed)- I like the Thai place there. You can get takeout small packaged items in the lobby downstairs from them too.

Fidelity has a good reputation for customer service, and main offices in Boston, which also makes them easy to deal with. They have a good interface on their online access system, too, with lots of reporting.

[drglam]

I got some retirement money from Harvard that I put into a plan with Fidelity.

My checking account gets a better interest rate. And they take out an annual fee for frittering away my Harvard pittance (because it's a pittance)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

When I was making the same choice, TIAA-CREF was the clear winner for ease of management, access to and clearly communicated information about my funds, low fees, high rates, and flexibility. That's all fairly quantifiable and checkable, though, and things certainly may have changed. (My only option now is Fidelity, though, so I've got a foot in both worlds.)

Mostly, though, I don't like Fidelity because they feel slimy. TIAA-CREF is painstakingly forthright about everything they do and what they're doing with my money. Dealing with Fidelity is usually unpleasant.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

G has been very satisfied with TIAA-CREF.

[ceo]

My father, who follows all this stuff obsessively, strongly recommends TIAA-CREF. My parents' retirement accounts have been there since the dawn of time.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Whups, when you said "Tufts" I thought you meant the college campus!

[quietann.livejournal.com]

It's kind of like when I was at Harvard, and everyone assumed I meant Harvard-in-Cambridge as opposed to Harvard-in-Longwood Medical Area.

We should have dinner sometime; is there anything in or around Malden Center worth checking out?

[http://users.livejournal.com/cgull_/]

That's really three choices:

Fidelity's mindboggling array of stuff,

TIAA/CREF's "traditional" investment plans for academics, which have been around for like half a century,

and TIAA/CREF's newer investment plan, which seems to be essentially just like all the other 401k-type plans being marketed to world+dog.

I can't say much about the difference or quality of the TIAA/CREF plans, but I just want to point out that TIAA/CREF is busy trying to reinvent itself as a more-typical retirement-money-investment business.

Apollos

[cathoris.livejournal.com]

If you are working in Boston near Boston's Chinatown.

Has Korean food and Sushi along with other Japanese foods. Is good place to go.

hugs