She came to London all the way from Spain!!This week I'm just going to post my journal entries for my first week on the job. They explain it best.
Rebecca & I on are way to Ernst & Young for our first day
First day: Tuesday, Oct. 13th
I was too exhausted yesterday to write on my first day so I am doing it now. Yesterday Preetal had stayed the night with me again. We didn't get in until 1 am because we met up to have a beer with some of her travel buddies. We got up in the morning and I got ready in the dark since my roommate Karen didn't start her internship until Wednesday. The lack of sleep (few hours plus sharing my twin bed with preetal) was making me really crabby about having to get ready in the dark on my first day.
Anyways, Rebecca and I left a little before 9 and Preetal rode the tube with us part way there before i had to say goodbye. Rebecca and I were excited to start since we have both been interviewing with firms at home but also nervous because neither of us have any idea what we are doing.
Well, we got there and met Tom who had e-mailed us the night before. He gave us a brief tour of the 2nd floor which is assurance, took us to IT to receive our laptops, and told us who we would be working with that day. We would have liked a bit more of an orientation. At lunch, Rebecca and I had to go hunt down our own ID cards to let us back in the building!
I was assigned to sort through papers and file them. I was plopped in front of a huge window that looked out over the river Thames, and right at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. It was beautiful and I so lucky. I could people watch and look at the pretty sites. Well 7 hours later, I was not filing papers anymore but had moved on to cleaning out boxes but was still sitting at that lucky table.
When the day was over, I was exhausted. I tried walking home because I had said I was going to try it for exercise. However, after 45 minutes of walking I had only made it 3 tube stops and South Kensington is around 10 away. I was tired and disappointed and did not want to go back. Is this what having a real job is like? Because if so, I want to go back to class!
Wednesday, Day 2:
Day two on the job was not as stressful as day one and went very differently. In the morning, I received an e-mail from an associate named Matt that needed some work done. I had no idea who Matt was but he came and found me and explained some data entry work he needed done. I happily did this work until about 11 or 11:30. I also received an e-mail that informed me I would be working at the Universal Music Publishing client all of next week. The woman I received the e-mail from I assume was the manager and she gave me directions and told me that we were allowed to wear jeans to match the clients dress code. That was pretty much the last meaningful work I did yesterday. I had a late lunch and afterward I tried to find out who I was assigned to work for from Tom but he again ignored my request. I don't want to badger people as they all seem very busy but I want tasks to do. So since no one was really responding, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking up Universal Music, reading the EY website, and e-mailing myself journal/blog entries. Rebecca and I ended up leaving at 4:45 which is a lot different from the 5:45 and 6:30 we had on our first day.
Thursday, Day 3:
I am now one of the masses, one of the busy Londoners to rush off to work each morning. By 8:30 I am on the tube. I get on and join in on the daily commute. Everyone with their headphones on, newspapers and books open, and if your unlucky you are standing so close that you get to know your neighbor better than you'd like. I wear boring black and white dress clothes since its my first week and I haven't tried wearing anything that stands out. How did I go from 21 years old to 35 in a week?
At the office, I worked with an American woman named Ann (she had a serious accent and she had to tell me she was American). She had me reviewing and checking the numbers and layout for the financial reports of two clients she is working on. She was very nice and took the time to explain it before I started. (I’m learning that tasks make sense when they are explaining them but not as much in practice). She explained that I need to “cast” the columns of numbers to make sure they are correct. Well, I had to ask what casting was and apparently it’s the British word for adding. Great, not only am I trying to learn how to do this work by understanding all the accounting abbreviations and lingo but I have to learn the general British lingo sheesh!! In the afternoon, I also met Elena who is a manager on Universal Publishing Group. She asked that I come to Universal on Friday and explained an overview of the company and what we would be doing there. I headed home a little after 5.
Friday, Day 4:
Friday, I reported to the Universal Publishing offices rather than the E & Y office. I was so glad I googled my own directions to the office just in case because I discovered that the directions e-mailed to me were very wrong and would have sent me to a completely different tube stop. I spent the day in a conference room with the 3 other women working on this client. Elena explained how she wanted me to transfer information over from financial records to a spread sheet. They were all very friendly and we spend the afternoon listening to the radio and making tea every hour. I tried my best on the assignment but it took me a very long time and by the end of the day I just felt really incompetent next to these other women. Since we didn’t really get any training (I swear I would be better at this job if I had some) I have just accepted that I will be dumb, clueless American intern while I’m here. I’m hoping I will know what I’m doing by the time I head home and it will be worth it. We all left at 5 because it was Friday!
Weekend:
Friday night we went to a party at a club called Penthouse (Because it was on the top level like a penthouse, it was classy no worries). We received a discount because it was one of the BU student’s birthday and everyone in our program was there. The place had views of the London eye and was packed.
Saturday, I got up and went shopping on Oxford street with Dave, Rebecca, and Chris. We first went to Primark where all the clothes are reeeallly cheap but it is packed with people. Then we just leisurely shopped, stopping for cupcakes from Lola’s before heading back and having a laid back night in.
Today, we went out to Greenwich to the market there. And as we do at all the street markets, we ate. We also wondered down the pier, through the really pretty naval college and through the Maritime museum before heading back into the city.
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