Moments Like These

Ever since starting my internship, I've had more than my fair share of...shall we say, dear-God-please-kill-me-now moments. Honestly, I don't even know where to begin...

OK, we'll start with the "meetings" (aka teleconferences). As you know, the way these so-called meetings work, is at the scheduled time, you dial into something called Meeting Place (it's a regular phone number). And then, to attend a meeting, you press 1 on your phone. And then you enter the Meeting ID, a 7 digit number that only people who are going to attend the meeting will know (everyone has their own Meeting ID, so whoever schedules the meeting usually just use their Meeting ID. So it's not a number that no one except the meeting attenders know, but no one would dial someone else's Meeting ID if there's no meeting scheduled anyway--everyone's already got enough on their plates.) So after that (yes it's kind of tedious), you "at the tone, say your name or location then press #". Finally after that, you're officially in the meeting.

So usually, during the meeting, when someone's talking, everyone else listens (well obviously). If there's a lot of background noise around you, or if someone wants to talk to you face to face, it's generally wise to press "#5" or a button if you're using a headset and put yourself on mute so that no one else on the line can hear you. And then after you're done, you want to unmute yourself in case someone on the line asks you something (so you'd be able to answer). As you can probably guess, the muting and unmuting can get a littleeeeeee crazy, or confusing.

That said, once during a meeting, a project manager was supposed to speak, but he wasn't on the line, so we moved on to someone else. Then later, the manager assigned someone else to speak for the project manager since he still hasn't dialed in. As this person (the substitute) was talking, I see the project manager walk in. And wanting to notify him that everyone's talking about his project, I blurted out, loudly, "Tony! They're talking about your project!"

Then, I looked over to my phone...andddddddddd...the mute button hasn't been pressed...

...

CRAP! Everyone just heard what I said. Dear God, please kill me now.
I could not get over this for the entire day. It might not seem like a big deal, but to me, at the time, it was. I was so incredibly embarrassed.

Besides this, here are a couple of things to keep in mind next time you're in a conference call:

1. Do not answer someone's question while you're on mute
2. Do not dial in in your house, so that everyone can hear your dog barking or children yelling in the background
3. Do not drive and honk while attending these meetings
   
4. Do not, PLEASE do not go to the bathroom while you're on the line and are not on mute... (thankfully, I wasn't there when this happened. I was told you can hear everything....)

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Moving on...I think I'm the biggest idiot when it comes to business etiquette. So, when I met my hiring manager's boss (yes, he's pretty high up, three more levels, and you're at the CEO) for the first time, I failed to stand up. Yes, you heard me, I FAILED TO STAND UP TO SHAKE HIS HAND WHEN I MET HIM, MY BOSS'S BOSS FOR THE FIRST TIME. I SHOOK HIS HAND WHILE SITTING DOWN.

Dear God, please kill me now.

I think I was just so taken aback by the fact that he would come especially to introduce himself to me and talk to me (to me, an intern), that I just forgot to.

Subsequently, I think I've stood up every single time I met someone...even other interns. But no matter how much standing up I do now, it will probably not wipe the lasting impression in my boss's boss's head that "jee, that intern H really has no manners".

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Lastly, I really think I have a memory problem. Today, when my group (12 people, including my boss, and my boss's boss) all went out to dinner, something incredibly ridiculous happened. So me being the happy giddy girly girl that I was, asked people (around 2 or 3 at a time) if they mind if I take their picture. Of course, being the polite folks that they are, no one objected. So I was going around the table, taking everyone's pictures.

And of course, when I get to my boss's boss, this had to happen. So his (my boss's boss) name is Pete. And the person to the right of him is Tony. And the person to the right of Tony is Mike. So I wanted to get all of three of them in the picture. So I called Tony first. (This got Tony and the attention of everyone around him). So basically, after I had the attention of EVERYONE...for the life of me, I COULD NOT remember what my boss's boss's name was...I BLANKED OUT. I just stared at Tony and my boss's boss...and...it LITERALLY took me at least 30 seconds to finally say "Pete!", (Dear God please kill me now!!!) after which a co-worker commented "you forgot his name? you forgot HIS name?" after which everyone bursted out laughing. And then, to make it worse, I forgot Mike's name as well...but managed to recover a little faster this time.

Crap! Why do things like these always happen to me?! I swear, this was not the first time this exact type of thing (forgetting the name of someone who I should know) happened to me...

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OK, having said all that, I do have to say I really love my job and especially the people that I work with. I've really been learning so much and having so much fun. I think my company has a great culture where there's a lot of visibility. Everyone's doing something that'll contribute to make it a better company, at least in my group--BI (Business Intelligence). And I think that's a very big motivator--knowing that you can make a difference in a big aspect of your company.

We're in the middle of our week-long staff (i.e. everyone, even those from India and Colorado) meeting (everyday from 8-5)and I've just been absorbing so much information and really liking what I'm hearing--like how we plan to improve ourselves, our team, etc.

Today, the CFO came to see us and spent an hour talking to us and answering our questions. Now it's not everyday that you can get the CFO to come and talk to a group of 12 people for an hour ANSWERING our questions. I even asked him a couple of questions. It was amazing. What a rare opportunity.

There's also a running gag on the team to sing happy birthday to one of the members every time we take him out to dinner. Someone would notify the restaurant who's "birthday" it is. And then later they would bring out candles and we'd all sing him happy birthday even though it (obviously) is not his birthday. It's hilarious! He would be taken by surprise every single time and everyone would crack up and laugh about it for like... 10 minutes. This has gone on for 5 years already...It's just great...and really doesn't get any more awesome than this!