How Was Your First Week?

I'm getting asked this question a lot and my answer is, "It's OK."  I don't know if I have a great impression of my new job right now, but I realize it could be worse. 

One of my first impressions is that there are going to be a lot of meetings.  My former manager always believed that meetings usually become a waste of time, but that's definitely not the philosophy at the new place.

I still don't really know what I'm going to do here and it worries me because from what I've seen so far I'm not sure that my background will give me immediate success in my new job.  It'd be nice to be seen as someone who can immediately contribute and blah, blah, blah.  The opposite of being seen as someone who's going to require tons of training and will make mistakes in the beginning is not as appealing. 

I had a former coworker a few jobs ago who was hired as a software/firmware engineer.  However, I learned that he was more of a hardware guy, but took the software job anyway because that's what was offered and he didn't have any other prospects.  He was gone from the company within a month.  From what I've been told, I guess I'm surprised he lasted that long. 

Not that I feel like a firing is imminent or anything, but the time frame for getting up to speed might be shorter than what might be appropriate for me so that scares me.

Here's a fun story that I've told several times now:

I'm at the water cooler and another guy approaches.

Friendly Guy: You look like you're new around new.
Me: I just started here this week.
Friendly Guy: Oh.  Where were you before?
(I give a description of my last company and my last job.)
Friendly Guy: What happened?
Me (not wanting to talk about it, but probably didn't hide it well): You know.  Things.
Friendly Guy (immediately interpreting with the money gesture): Oh.  I know things.
Me (acting in total agreement): Yeah.  You know how it is.

My wife likes to imagine this conversation with any number of sexual gestures instead of the money gesture. 

A second story:

Setup.  This week and throughout the next few weeks, I'm going to have individual meetings with other engineers in different departments so that I can have an idea of how all the groups work together and all that junk.  This was one of them.

Other Engineer: What's your job title here?
Me: Technology Development Engineer
Other Engineer: So what group are you in?
I answer.
Other Engineer: What did you do before?
I give my short interview spiel on my last couple jobs.
Other Engineer (realizing that my spiel is completely different from the group I'm assigned to): So what technology would you be developing for this group?
Me: I don't know.

For me, that conversation pretty much sums it up.  I've had lots of meetings and tagged along with other engineers now, but nothing really makes sense yet.