Smoking

One thing that has kind of surprised me about New York in the past 11 days is the number of people who smoke. I know that living in a large city I’ll see a lot of smokers, but it seems that most of the people who smoke are those wearing suits and looking like they work at a bank or consulting firm or law firm – people who should know better! I swear, I see more people here smoking than I did in North Carolina.. a state so important to the tobacco industry that there is a town called Tobaccoville and the state house of representatives just recently prohibited smoking on the house floor! I wonder if most of the people here have been smoking since they were teens, or if they picked up the habit since they started working so as to be part of the ‘in crowd’. Then again, smoking is thought to be a stress reliever and since many people here work insane hours they may be unable to partake in other healthier stress relievers, like exercise. Speaking of exercise, did I mention in any of my other blogs how the gym I get free membership to for the summer is awesome, because it totally is! Maybe those smokers should check it out.

I miss Sametime and Bluepages

There were several times during the school year when I wanted to ask a classmate a real quick question but the only options I would have to ask the question would be to either send an email or hunt down the person on campus (I don’t get very good reception in the GSB building so cell phone communication is out). “Dang, I wish we had sametime” I would tell myself while thinking of ways the tool could be incorporated into our school computer network. The same thoughts are now entering my mind at BS. This is the first time since I graduated college where I work in an environment that doesn’t have instant messaging capabilities…. And its hard to get used to! Sametime was great because you can see if someone is on or off line.. if they are off line chances are they aren’t working so you don’t have to waste your time calling them up only to get their voice mail which you would often times follow up with an email anyway. You could also shoot a sametime to your manager to stop by and see you after she’s off the phone rather than do what I do now and send an email message with the subject line “I figured out the problem. Stop by when you are done. –eom”


I’m also feeling nostalgia for Bluepages. Here, our phone directly consists of entries which include telephone number, title (here, the only titles are VP, AD, MD, and SMD), department, and office location. Compared to IBM this isn’t much information. You know… when I look up someone’s name that I need to call I’d like to see a picture of what they look like so I can put a face to the name. Also, knowing their report to chain would be helpful so I know where they fit in the overall organization of the firm. Shoot, even knowing info like projects they’ve worked on in the past and financial and software tools they are proficient with would be nice. Now I have to go and actually meet with people to learn more about them. Sheesh.

My first week in NYC

I’ve been in New York a little over a week and so far things have been going well. I started my internship last Monday with a half a day of orientation. Orientation at BS is the same as every other place I worked. They went over dress code, security policies, showed us a video of what a great year 2006 was and how 2007 will be just as great, if not better… you know, the administrative stuff you always go over when you start a new job. Needless to say I was pretty bored. One thing that is different now than when I attended job orientations during high school and college… an emphasis on electronic communications like the proper use of cell phone, texting, and internet use during work hours. When I had my first job back at the Camp Zama library in 8th grade cell phones weren’t even thought of. Now I use mine at some point almost every day to make after work plans with my classmates in the city.


Speaking of electronic communication etiquette, someone needs to give that lesson to the sales clerks at Macy’s. I spent about half of my weekend there shopping for clothes and shoes since they were having a big sale and noticed that at some point at least 1/4 of the sales clerks were on their cell phones. I don’t know about you, but I would think that someone who has a customer service role where they are actually face to face with customers would know better than to use their cell phone while working…. Or tell their customer that they are going to lunch in ten minutes and can only assist you until then… but that is a different story.



Anyway, back to my internship… I sit on the 35th floor of BS’ headquarters building which is located in Midtown Manhattan. I have an office (which I share) that has a window with views of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. Every time I look out the window the soundtrack of Annie plays in my head… actually, when I’m walking around the city scenes of the movie pop into my head, especially the scene where the orphans have escaped from the orphanage and they are trying to get to Daddy Warbuck’s estate and they have to walk, like, 100 blocks to get there.



Outside of my internship things are well. I live in Brooklyn Heights which I have found out is one of the most expensive parts of the city, but my rent is cheap. Plus, my rent includes membership to this really awesome gym on the same block as my building. Seriously, this is the nicest gym I’ve ever been to. There are machines I’ve never seen before that work out muscles I didn’t know existed! And, they have lots of classes everyday that are free! My goal is to go at least four times a week. We’ll see how that goes.

Where have I been???

I know it has been MONTHS since I last posted on here and all I can say is “I’ve been busy”. Besides, I’ve seen or talked to most of you since my last posting in January so you know what I’ve been up to. For those of you I haven’t spoken with, here is a brief update: I ended the internship recruiting season with a couple offers and chose at accept an internship offer with BS in New York City. I will be a part of their financial management associate program working on a top secret project with the legal department. Well, the project isn’t top secret, but I’m not sure if I can tell you about it. Anyway….

After the winter quarter I spent my spring break volunteering with Presidential Classroom in DC. I’ve been volunteering for a week for the past four years and am usually fine, but I was worn out this year, you know, since I had just finished exams and was recovering from the beast that is called interviewing. The week after I arrived back in Chicago from DC we started our spring quarter and it was just BRUTAL. I took four classes, which generally wouldn’t be that bad, but I picked my schedule based in times that were convenient for me (no Fridays or Saturdays and as many afternoon classes as possible) without really looking at how involved the classes were and how much work was due each week. I went from having about four hours of outside class work per class for the fall and winter quarter, to nine hours spring quarter and that isn’t including a history class I took outside of the business school which required at least 20 hours of reading each week. Add on the responsibilities of being a 2007-2008 co-chair for the Financial Analysis and Treasury Group and you get a busy quarter!

So, my first year of B-school is over and I am now in New York City ready to spend 10 weeks back in the working world...And I’ actually looking forward to it. New York should be fun this summer since there are, like, 150 of my classmates here… even though about half of them are bankers so I’ll never see them, and from what I hear I’ll have some semblance of a work/life balance so I’ll be able to go out and see the sights. Once my internship is over I’m heading to Belize to lead a Random Walk trip… this is the same type of trip I took to Turkey last year before school started, but this year I get to lead the trip! It’s all beach and will be a great break from seven months of school and internship.