Week 6: The One in the Training Center

6/27/16 – 7/1/16

Monday: Happy Birthday to me! I just turned 19.

This week will be unique because my supervisor arranged for me to work in the next-door training center on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So, Monday, I spent time with Mechelle and Carrie, the receptionists in the training center, learning the ins and outs of how we deliver our courses. It was very interesting to see how the courses worked at the ground level, instead of only marketing them or on the product level creating them. I also began to appreciate the level of customer service that is required and how it sets us apart from our competitors. I also got to meet tons of our sales people and instructors who work in the training center. All in all it was an interesting day.

Tuesday I moved back up to the fifth floor, and worked on my CDFs. I also continued with the IBM certs, and I created a spreadsheet to track my progress and shared it with Jenee and Caitlin, so that they would be able to view my progress as well. I learned last week that it was difficult to keep track of what was done and what wasn’t, so hopefully this spreadsheet will help to organized the slightly unstructured assignment and lead to a more fluid workflow.

On Wednesday, I was back in the training center. It was a very slow day of general receptionist responsibilities. So, I mostly greeted people, restocked the break room, and worked on other stuff on my computer. Not a lot to report!

Thursday, I returned to my cubicle, and worked on CDFs all day long. This was great because I could really knock them out efficiently for Sarah because there were no distractions or other priorities. I am nearly done with them now.

Friday, I was again in the training center. Although, it was much more interesting because I was lucky enough to sit down with Michael Harward, the manager of all training centers in North America. We had a fascinating chat about the company, its history, his history with the company, and his advices for me. He is such a nice guy, and put me in contact with a woman named Linda Chapman, whose parents were Foreign Service Officers. For the rest of the day, we mostly cleaned up to the training center and set them up for next week’s classes.