Many of the US forms you will have to fill out when you move will ask for an address. Use your work address until you have a permanent place.
A good example is opening your first bank account. The only possible problem with using your work address for your bank account is that some people will compare the shipping address of your online order with the billing address and complain, but you can always change the address you have recorded with the bank once you have a more permanent address.
Opening a bank account without an SSN can be exciting too (it seems to be the primary key for a lot of tables over here, you can’t get paid without one, get health insurance without one, get some cell phone accounts without one, and so forth). Bank of America did the right thing and let me open an account though, and don’t suck too much. Citibank is ok as well, although they seem to suck more for general banking than Bank of America. More on Citibank in a future post about getting money back to Australia.