Tuesday, June 01, 2004

The First Week (+1)

Thanks for checking in, and here's the newest update:
      So, here's what happened in the first full week: I met my manager's manager's manager, Alan Johnson at a status meeting; I went to ethics training; I got an actual project; I made more friends; I also did a handful of other things.
      Alan Johnson is a pretty cool guy. I went to a status meeting for some of the the BCA-IS ID&S (Boeing Commerical Airplanes - Information Systems, Information and Data Systems) projects. That morning, there was a breakfast for the BCA-IS interns. I won a vibrating pen (don't ask). Then, later that afternoon I went to the status meeting. Alan introduced himself, and said: "I'm sorry I missed the breakfast this morning." Then, I said: "Yeah, me too." If you don't know me that well... I'm a little on the sarcastic side. So, when I said: "Yeah, me too" it was just dripping with saracasm. Because I didn't actually know he was my manager's manager's manager. So, everyone goes silent... then they all bust out laughing.. and Alan says: "I like a guy with balls, come up and sit at the table next to me." So, my typical fresh intern mistake turned into a miraculous office politics coup. I went to another status meeting later that week, and Alan remembered my name (keep in mind, that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people in his group).
      At the end of last week I had Ethics training. I was kind of sad that I had to go, because it sounded like it would be 2 hours of: "blah blah blah ethics blah blah blah don't do that yadda yadda." But, I talked to a few people who had already taken it, and they all said it wasn't too bad. So, I rounded up the Renton intern troops , and we went to it. We got a video lecture that was really interesting. Did you know that 99% of people think they're the most ethical person in their workplace. Isn't that insane? Which basically means if you think that you're the most ethical person in your workplace... YOU'RE WRONG! haha, sucker. The video was filled with a bunch of other awesome little factoids, and it was awesome.
      The Oracle Standards Development Team gave me a project. I got some requirements, and I did a logical data model and drew an ER diagram (woohoo! CS360 - Databases has some applicability to a real job). The SDT just wants a small database, so they requested it to be done with Microsoft Access. They also requested that I make a form so they can do data entry with some prettiness. I've been working on that, coding up some Visual Basic for the form to do some cool crap. I've got a meeting with a person from the SDT tomorrow to see what Data Model they want to use, and what the form should look like. Today, I got a couple more projects, these ones are for an actual Oracle database.
      The interns that work in the 10-80 and 10-18 are getting to be pretty good friends. We meet for lunch everyday... a standing date. One of them had his 21 birthday this weekend and they took him out, and got him h-a-m-m-e-r-e-d. Unfortunatly, I was back at Priest Lake because it was also my birthday (I'm 22 now). I heard some good stories, and I hear there are some good pictures... I can't wait. We're planning on going to Leavenworth (Washington's little Bavarian village). $10 beer garden... :-D
      I'm also learning about about a million miles an hour. By the end of the summer, I suspect that my brain will be about 110% full.
      Thats it for this week. Band of Brother is on HBO, and its like one of the best shows over. Peace.

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