Starting Work

ASML employs 25000+ people in the Eindhoven area alone (Eindhoven is population of ~225k so it’s pretty significant).

On the first of each month is generally a pretty big influx of new starts. Apparently ~300 people and myself were scheduled to have their first day on the 1st Feb, so to get a jump on the masses I needed to be there for 8am. I want to cycle to work as standard, and it’s a 25 min cycle

I wanted to make sure I got there with plenty of time to find somewhere to park the bike (which turned out not to be so difficult as there are thousands of bike rack spaces) and walk to the entrance somewhat composed. I also wanted to allow plenty of time in the morning to put on my work clothes, get the older two kids dressed, make a lunch (cheese sandwich [nl:boterham met kaas] keeping it traditional) and get out the door. So I thought I should set an alarm for around 0630…. however the kids generally wake up anytime around 0500 so the alarm and meticulous scheduling were not necessary.

Cycling here is very cool. Everyone from all walks of life can be seen on a bike. The bikes are all pretty similar. There are some E-Bikes, some mopeds, but primarily there are what you might consider a traditional dutch bike. That’s what we bought a few days back. Three gears, big seat, bell, lights front and back, crate on the front, parcel shelf with strechies on the back, wobbly af.

The infrastructure for transport is incredibly well thought out. Buses are all electric and get priority at every intersection. The traffic signals for cars, bikes and pedestrians (all separate to one another) actually know when a bus is approaching and get put on hold until the bus passes. The buses are fast, quiet, clean, frequent, and well used. The cycle paths are very smooth with few (but some) bumps or patch up works. So far as I’ve seen you are rarely required to cycle on the road with cars etc – maybe only in more residential areas.

Work, in a nutshell, is cool. The company produces cutting edge technology for the worlds leading technology manufacturers. It’s the ~35th highest net worth company in the world.

I spent Wed, Thu, Fri seeing the campus, meeting the people, learning about the company and about what my team do. I still don’t know masses about what i’ll do day to day, but i’m building up a fairly reasonable idea of it.

I have a buddy (Geert) who is assigned to me to help me through the whole onboarding process. He’s a lovely guy and he’s helping massively. When we move to our perm residence next week in Meerhoven, we’ll actually only live a few streets away from him. You might find this a huge coincidence but apparently Meerhoven is primarily inhabited by ASML employees 😂

Geert introduced me to some pretty tasty Dutch treats – Liquorice [nl:drop]

It’s eaten like a sweetie, but it’s certainly the type of thing most kids would want to eat. Quite an acquired taste.