Georgetown MBA Internship Diary: Andrew

Phew...

So I got up at 6am today, went into work and printed out copies of my 47-slide powerpoint final presentation, and got ready to give my spiel at 8:30am... and it got pushed back til 9am. So I grabbed some hot chocolate, checked my email, and got ready to talk at 9am... and it got pushed back til 10am. So I went for a little walk, pondered life for a few minutes, and got ready to present at 10am... and it went well!

Not sure what the moral of this story above is, but I'm pretty much done with my internship now at FedEx-Kinko's. Have a meeting at 8am tomorrow, have some files to give to my manager and a few other people in Finance, and then I head to the airport in early afternoon. Ah, DC, here I come...

Wrapping it up...

Not going to post much the next few days. It's week 10 here at FedEx-Kinko's... and I've got to wrap up all my projects and activities before I fly back to DC on Friday (less than 72 hours!)

My final presentation will be on Thursday morning, to the VP of Finance, at 8:30am. Yikes. So it's time to get back to the Excel and Powerpoint...

Random things...

Before I go into work today for a few (or many) hours, just a few random things I wanted to post.

First, a photo of the mall that the FedEx-Kinko's headquarters is attached to. And yes, that is an ice-skating rink:

Second, I shipped two boxes worth of books and clothes back to DC this weekend (via FedEx Ground, of course). Love that corporate discount. Hopefully now, my luggage won't be in danger of being overweight when I fly home on Friday (it was 50.0lb exactly on the way down here)!

Third, I hope I don't have to look at Excel for at least a few weeks after this Friday. I mean, I love the program and all... but in this quantity...

Fourth, wow, it's just 10 days until I start helping with Orientation for the 1st year class at the Georgetown MBA program. Time flies...

One week to go?? Wow...

I guess it's true: time flies when you're in Texas. When I left work about 2 hours ago, I was officially done with my 9th week of a 10-week internship. Wow.

On one hand, I want to say that the time has gone by quickly... I feel like I'm meeting new people every day and just getting settled here. But on the other hand, parts of my internship have gone by really slowly. This week was more toward the latter.

Most of this week was spent at my desk, on my computer. In past weeks, there had been more meetings and reading, but this week was almost all data diving. It could have gone better -- the one main "data guy" here at FedEx-Kinko's is on vacation (leaving me and half the Pricing department struggling with SAS coding), and it's taking a lot longer to organize data in Excel than I imagined. But at the same time I've done some good things this week too -- talked to the FedEx-Kinko's corporate account executives who handle 6 of the top 25 commercial accounts (which was a learning experience), and had a couple of good lunches with my co-workers (Burger Hut, Whataburger, and Subway).

But now it's crunch time. Lars & I are going out to dinner tonight and probably tomorrow. The rest of the weekend though... I'll probably be in the office, pulling data, and organizing graphs to show revenue performance trends. Lots of fun ahead... but less than 7 days left in Texas now!

At the top...

Today was certainly interesting. I mean, it's not every day that you get to talk with the CEO of a major company for 30 minutes in his office!

Thanks to the organization & persistance of Lars, we sat down with FedEx-Kinko's CEO Ken May this morning. He asked about our summer projects, we asked about the company's expansion plans, he talked about his visit to the White House yesterday (that was a bit surreal). And of course Ken left us with parting words to pass along to Professor John Mayo - his former professor and advisor.

All in all, a decent start to the day. And we'll be seeing Ken again in three weeks when Lars & I help out during the First Integrative (aka - FedEx case competition) that is part of the 1st-year Orientation in the Georgetown MBA program.

Travelling in Tejas...

Well, I've certainly gotten to see a bit more of Tejas during the past few days. I love to travel, and one of the things that I hoped to be able to do this summer was to visit a lot of cool places around the state (and the south). And I'm happy to say that my mission has been accomplished... for the most part.

On Friday morning, I gave a progress report on my main project to two managers from another department at FedEx-Kinkos. That went pretty well... a pat on the back and a list of 10 new things to dive into... could be worse!

Then, after wiping my brow and grabbing a smoothie at the mall on the way home, I caught Greyhound for a nice 3.5 hour ride to Austin via Waco. Not to say anything offensive, but I'm a fairly small person (who has lost 12lbs this summer to boot), so you can imagine the type of person who would seize the opportunity to sit next to little-old-me on the bus ride. Fun.

Friday night through Sunday morning, I stayed with a college friend in Austin who is getting at PhD at the University of Texas. We had some sushi (hmmm), talked about college football (makes sense), visited a couple of local watering holes that my Georgetown MBA classmates told me about (mandatory), and even had some free chicken courtesy of my friend's family connections. Nice place:

On Sunday, my friend and I drove to San Antonio for the day. Yes, it was ~90 miles each way, but there were a few good reasons. First, the Riverwalk and the Alamo (both much smaller than I thought):

Second, the ribs at County Line (bigger than I could eat):

And third, the Alumni Event sponsored by the Penn Club of San Antonio. I don't have any photos of that, in part because the host (class of 1966, I believe) thought that I was an incoming Freshman for the Class of 2011. That kind of floored me... yikes.

After that, we drove back to Austin, I changed to Greyhound to go to Waco, changed to another Greyhound to Dallas, changed to a city bus to my hotel, and finally changed into my Guiness pajamas for bed. Phew.

Oh yeah, and I had a full day of work at my internship today. Fun times. Can't believe there's less than two weeks left here at FedEx-Kinko's. I've learned a lot about the company while I've been here, and been involved in a number of interesting projects... but still, it seems like I haven't done all that much. Hmmm. Well, let's hope that Lars & I put forth our most impressive effort in the morning... we'll be meeting with the CEO at 10am!

Interesting times...

Well, this week at work has certainly has had its' share of interesting happenings. Tuesday was the Town Hall for all corporate employees, Wednesday had me sit in on a store expansion review meeting run by the CFO and the CEO's right-hand man, and today had me... doing arts & crafts. Yes, you read that right!

As part of the employee morale plan or what-not, each group within the Finance department has been decorating their part of the 22nd floor with positive messages relating to the FedEx-Kinko's motto of "People-Service-Profits". My group (Financial Planning & Analysis) had each person decorating a two-foot tall posterboard "person", which was complete with our own photo printed out and enlarged for the head. And when these were done, they would be posted on the walls of our area. I eschewed the construction paper and "fancy" material to go old school -- a few pieces of white & yellow lined paper, a manila folder, a paper cup, and some post-it-notes later, and I had one of the best designed mini-people. Heck, I even duplicated my work outfit today.

Those fun and games aside, the internship is still going pretty well. Had a meeting on my pricing project today where a manager from another department was impressed with my results. That was good. Then she decided to give me another similar mini-project for next weekend now that she knew I could handle the work. That was not good. Have another progress report meeting tomorrow at 10am on my main financial analysis project, which I'm not quite ready for yet. So it looks like I have a few hours of playing with Excel ahead of me tonight...

The Town Hall...

This morning was a pretty big event here at FedEx-Kinko's -- almost everyone from our Dallas office travelled out to the Plano Civic Center for the twice-yearly "Town Hall Meeting". There was an update on FY07 results and FY08 plans as part of an upbeat speech by FedEx-Kinko's CEO Ken May. Then there was a keynote talk by the FedEx CIO (chief information officer), dealing with networks and expansion. And finally there was an award ceremony at the end -- about 25 employees were recognized for outstanding service across the FK corporate office, and the Finance Dept was named "most improved team". Plus there was free breakfast and entertaining powerpoint slides, which are always good things.

On another note, I've knocked Chick-Fil-A and Taco Bueno off my list of fast-food places to hit. The last few left for me in Texas are What-A-Burger (none within 3 miles of my hotel), Taco Cabana (so says Eli), Pluckers (which I'll hit in Austin on Saturday), and maybe Waffle House (though I've got that before). Well, that is unless other people have ideas for food I should try??

Random photo...

When I got back from work today, there was an envelope waiting for me in my hotel room. It was a CD of photos from my New Orleans trip last weekend thanks to my friend Martha. Obviously most of those photos will never see the light of day (what happens in the Big Easy, stays in the Big Easy)... but here's a good one that I have to post. Yep, it's a photo of me and my friend Simone in a voodoo museum, pointing to a "zombie whip" that is mounted on the wall. Yes!!

So it's true... you can still have some (ridiculous) fun even in the midst of an MBA summer internship!

Time flying by...

Sure, when I was sitting at my desk for hours and hours on end today (playing with Excel, SAS, Business Objects, and Outlook all at once)... I didn't think time was flying by at all. But when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll be 2/3 of the way done with my time here in Texas. 47 days down, 23 days left... that's kind of hard to believe!

Let's see, what have I done so far this summer??

• Meetings where I walked out saying "wow, that was cool"... check. Meetings where I walked out saying "well, that's another hour I'll never have back"... also check.
• Good projects where I learn... check. Tough projects where I have a ton of questions... also check.
• Exploring the fast-food of the Southland... semi-check (Sonic, Steak-n-Shake, Freebird & Burger Hut down; What-a-Burger, Taco Bueno & a few others left). Exploring the sights of the Southland... also semi-check (Dallas, Fort Worth & New Orleans down; Austin & San Antonio coming up soon).
• Making the most of my free time... check (jet-skiing, tennis, 3 movies, tons of HBO, lots of walking, and lost 11lbs too). Making the most of Lars' free time... check plus (even though he says he doesn't mind, I've got to get him something to thank him for driving a lot this summer!)

Well then, time for me to stop waxing nostalgic. I've got a copy of USA Today to read (I like the colorful graphs and charts), a few emails to send, and then it's off to bed once again...