Week of June 3rd

Part A: Activities/Tasks

- On my first week at the job I met everyone and became a fun co-worker to be around. My first 2 days I spent time reading 3 books that all interns at GRT have to read. The books were books that had very important information on how GRT carries itself and how GRT wants  its workers to carry themselves as well as represent the company. On the third day I attended a GRT conference meeting in were we went over the amount of projects we had done during that month and compared them to previous numbers as well as expectations made early in the month. I also learned how to use all the servers which I learned in 2 days and I was also trained by the other interns on how to use Webcom 2 (which is our main server). My first two weeks at GRT, the Web Project Editing team and I worked on some interesting projects. We worked on a project for a summer course at Michigan State titled "Wine and other Hospitality Beverages" and a project for a summer course at Sonoma State titled "Big Ideas in Cosmology". We also worked on a summer course titled "Introductory Physics 102" and this project was for the author Wathiq Abdul – Razzaq and we worked on these projects all week during my first week. This week, we worked on a summer course at New Mexico State titled "Concepts in Physics - 212", a summer course at the University of South Alabama titled "Psychology", a summer course at Washington State University titled "Environmental Science and Sustainability Solutions". All of these projects are very time consuming but with great time management and once you learn the servers it will go very quickly. 

Part B: Reflections/ What I learned

What are the key events and features of this experience?

- The key events and features of my experience at Great River Technologies are pretty interesting. Some of the key events at GRT are the monthly meetings that we have as a team. At these meetings we go over what we have accomplished as a team, for example, we go over how many web projects we have completed and compare them to past numbers as well as predictions/projections for that month. Another key event is the food days that we have. I believe once a month we have a day in were everyone at GRT brings in food to share with all the workers. It is a good way to meet other workers, communicate with them and maybe even ask for a recipe. 

- Some of the features at GRT are our special servers that we use to create the web projects. There are 9-10 servers and they all have different material from different Universities. We just actually got a new server called Webcom 2 and this is were we do all of our work from. It is a little tricky to use but it is a very nifty tool. It allows us to do the web projects quicker and it gives us access to tools that were not in Webcom 1. 

What assumptions am I making about the people involved in this experience, including myself?

- I am assuming that everyone working at GRT wants to be there because they want to not because they need to be there. I am also assuming the same thing about myself, I will get up every morning wanting to go to work and do the job that is needed for me to do with the best of my abilities.

What did I observe about my behavior and actions and those of others?

- I observed that I am very good at keeping my composure when there is a difficult task at hand. I also noticed that I am a very quick learner and if I put my mind into it I can accomplish anything. Another thing I observed is that I can be very friendly when surrounded by other people that are friendly. That brings me to my next point, everyone at GRT is very friendly and are always trying to have a conversation with you. They also encourage me as well as everyone else to ask them questions if we have any or we need help with anything. 

Situation/ Event #1

- On May 31st, John Vail who is the Assistant Vice President at GRT saw me working by one of the other interns cubicle, stopped and started talking to me about the Cubs vs. White Sox series. John is  a Cubs fan and I am a White Sox fan so when the Cubs beat the White Sox in 3 straight games he let me have it. So I told him to live it up because the Cubs don't and won't have much to cheer about this season.

This goes to show you the type of atmosphere that GRT has and how easily the supervisors and the big management people interact with their employees. 

Situation/ Event #2

- On May 29th we had a food day at our company which is when employees bring in food to share with co-workers. Everyone brought food and I must say, some of the food they brought was delicious. Everyone shared their food, people went up to other people to tell them they tried their food and that it was delicious. In one case, people came up to one of the employees asking for her recipe.