Monday, October 02, 2006

Genentech and home, the early days

Even though I've been in SF for two months, I haven't said or shown much. Sorry!

I actually live not in San Francisco but in Daly City. (Pronounced like "Daily.") I rent a room-plus in a house with a very kind Christian family. Genentech, where I work, is in the city of South San Francisco. They're all only a short drive from each other.

On this map, I've circled SF, Daly City, and South San Francisco in red. My house is near the cyan circle. Genentech is near the green circle. My alma mater, Cal, is in blue.



I live very close to this shopping center, which has a Ranch 99! (Ranch 99 is a Chinese supermarket. They usually have live fish in tanks!) If only I could read/speak/cook in Chinese! I will try to boil dumplings again, at least. I took this picture the first day I arrived. Isn't the sky beautiful?

At Genentech, everyone's first day is on Monday, because they have orientation only every Monday. On my first day, about thirty other people were also starting. That's about 1500 new employees this year! (There are currently ~13,000 employees in all of Genentech.) It's practically impossible for any one person in the company to know everyone else, but we're still on the same team. :-)



What do we do at Genentech?

Genentech's mission is to develop drugs to address significant unmet medical needs.


That's short but consistent with what I've seen here so far. Later, I hope to talk more about
Genentech's products and my research.


On my first real day at work, I was walking down from one of the parking lots and took this picture. A glass hallway separates two research buildings; I work in the left building. But do you see what's behind the glass hallway? IT'S THE OCEAN!!!

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Geoff - I just love all your pictures!! They're so fun to look at and you narrate a very descriptive commentary.

I love the picture with the sky -- it's gorgeous! And I am terribly jealous...man, you get to work right next to the ocean?! Ha, very nice. :)

Andrew Hernandez said...

Geoff, welcome to Genentech. I remember my first day eight years ago. Art Levinson came to meet the new employees. I believe that was the last time he did it. I live in S.S.F so my commute is a bit shorter than yours. You forgot to tell people that you can only go in Ranch 99 with a clothes pin on your nose. Also, just a matter of specifics, your picture shows the San Francisco Bay, not the ocean.

Dave said...

Geoff!!!! How come you haven't updated your blog for like 10 months now?? Is Genentech working you too hard??

Or did you start a new blog and not tell me you're moving? We need to do lunch too. Maybe if you post again it'll be on me.

Anonymous said...

I used to live near SFSU and the Daly City BART. Small world!