Chapter 2 First day at CAMARADES Edinburgh

2.1 Office location

Our address is Chancellor’s Building 49 Little France Crescent Edinburgh EH16 4SB and the main office number is +44 (0) 131 465 9577

We are based on the 1st floor of the Chancellor’s building within the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences (CCBS). From the stairs to the first floor (just beside reception), turn right then into the first corridor on the right, then left at the keycard access door. The CAMARADES office (FU204) is the second office on the right.

The main CAMARADES office accommodates desks for Post-docs, research assistants, and our data analyst, with occasional seating for undergraduate/MSc students. Our PhD students have their designated space in the postgraduate office next door.

Malcolm’s office (FU202h) and Emily’s office (FU303g) are separate and accessed through the main CCBS open plan area. You can find them by taking the first door on the left in the hallway, roughly opposite (slightly to the right) of the main CAMARADES office.

The CAMARADES office is currently at capacity, and such there may be occassions where we need to make use of the hotdeks available in the CCBS open plan area. These desks are not bookable and are free for anyone to use.

2.2 Other locations: breakroom, cafeteria, male and female toilets

To reach the breakroom, turn left out of the office, and down the first corridor immediately on your right. The breakroom door is at the end of the hallway on the right. The conference room where fortnightly lab meetings typically take place (and is bookable for other purposes) is the door at the end of the hallway on the left.

The breakroom has plenty of seating area and is shared with the rest of the floor. It contains several microwaves, kettles, and hot and cold water dispensers, as well as fridges, dustbins/recycling, and a sink for washing up. There is also a first aid box near the sink.

Male and female and disabled toilets are located just outside keycard access door, about halfway down the hallway.

The campus contains several cafes and food retailers. A cafeteria (Jex-Blake Suite) is located on the ground floor of Chancellor’s Building near reception. An M&S Food, WHSmith and the hospital cafeteria are located in the main building of the Royal Infirmary, near the East Entrance to the ERI. Ensure you have your staff ID to receive a discount in the hospital cafeteria.

2.3 Building access

The Royal Infirmary itself is open to visitors, but to visit CCBS you need to sign in at reception in the Chancellor’s building (just at the foot of the stairs), where you would be given an access card, to be handed in at the end of the day.

If your contract is less than 3 months, you can sign out a long-term access card to avoid having to check in daily – although these cards require to access the CCBS area via the main corridor that faces the front on the building.

If your contract extends to 3 months or beyond, you’re required to obtain your own ID badge. The form for this is available at the main reception on the ground floor. Once completed, including the signature of either Malcolm or Emily, please leave it at reception for the building manager’s signature. Subsequently, you can proceed to the ID badge room, ensuring you bring along photographic identification.

Locating the ID badge room might feel like a small test of your ability to follow written instructions! Don’t hesitate to ask a long-standing member of the team for guidance in finding it

2.4 Signing contracts and getting IT access

This is to be sorted immediately upon starting with your line manager. You will need to be assigned your own @ed.ac.uk email address, get access to the People And Money system (where you can access compulsory and optional training, your employee details and contract, as well as many other items such as booking annual leave).

You should be able to sign in to the Eduroam WiFi, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook using your ed.ac.uk email address. If working from home, sign up to the UoE VPN service to be able to use institutional access and local IP addresses.