I got to meet my manager, Paul Thai, today. It seems like he’s a real nice guy, although we didn’t talk to much other than discussing the general expectations for both of us. I get the feeling that I’ll be working with my co-workers a lot more than Paul, but it’s nice to know that someone like him is my boss. My room was closer to him than to the colleagues, so they decided to move me closer to who I’ll be working with more. I’m now sharing a room with Michael Vollmer, who used to be a high school quarterback but tore his knees out and instead got volleyball scholarship for college.
The same afternoon, Jerome asked me to work on a workbook. It wasn’t a difficult task to do. I basically had to make all the spreadsheets look nice and neat and congruent with each other. But it did take a long time. These templates get sent out to all the global regions, but when they come back, they don’t look like what they started out with. I liked the fact that the task came with a time restraint of 2 hours, because I felt like I really contributed to something that was important. We had to send it out before 5PM, and afterwards, I was told to start reading the White Paper and look for any errors and see if any of the spreadsheets I worked on that afternoon was irrelevant. I took the papers and spreadsheets home.
Sorry I haven’t been able to write or receive calls for a while. I’ve been really busy, especially as of late. I finally received my laptop when I started working yesterday, the 31st of May 06, and decided to bring it home tonight to finally write a few emails.
I haven’t really had time to catch up because my last final ended on the 18th of May, I had TMJ appointment at Fremont at 11AM, got a haircut, packed, signed a new lease, and helped Karen and Helen, my new roommates for next year, move into our apartment for the summer. I took off to LA on the night of the 19th, on the same flight as Patrick, who was heading home to attend a wedding. I was greeted at the airport by my brother, mother, and my step-father, and it was the first of such occasion since October of 04 when we had met for my mother’s birthday. That weekend went by more quickly than it should have, and I left on the night of the 21st for JFK.
I arrived at JFK on Monday morning, 22 May 06. I was planning on taking the train, subway, train, and taxi to get to where I was going to live for the next 2.5 months in White Plains, but my 4 bags started to get awfully heavy. So instead, I decided to take a rental car from Enterprise. Because SEO had a corporate account set up, I didn’t have to pay extra underage fee of $75. And because the car I originally set up to rent was out of gas, they automatically upgraded me to the next class car. Not bad for a 100 bucks. I found my way out of JFK ok. I got lucky plenty of times on the highway, and thankfully never got lost. I had donuts for brunch and got to White Plains, about 50 miles away, in 3 hours. I don’t like driving around in the east coast as much. Each cities are located far from each other and huge forests separate each town. There were too many hills for me to count and each exit was designated a name, not a street. I suppose it helps knowing which exit numbers are coming up, but what’s with all the streets running parallel to the highway? I still don’t understand that concept… I found the apartment in White Plains, although I had unknowingly passed by it first time around.
I parked in a private residence parking with the car facing out, under the shade, with the alarm on, so that I could sleep peacefully but could also move out if someone needed the spot. I was tired, and slept for about 1.5 hours when Matt Lee called from West Point. He quickly looked up directions for me to get to West Point, and I got there in less than an hour. It was nice to visit the place Matt had called home for the past 4 hours. I knew I was going to see him again on Saturday, but that engagement was nothing more than a ceremony attendance. I got to meet his girlfriend and Tina Chong, a high school and TaeKwonDo friend who was also graduating. I headed back home, still in my rental car, and moved into my apartment.
Training began fairly early the next day, and it was my first day using public transportation to New York City so I woke up bright and early and walked towards the train station at 7AM, a 15 minute walk. I took an Express train to New York City, a 35 minute transit, and took the subway towards my training location in Manhattan, a 10 minute ride. I met both my first and second round interviewers, Kim and Carla, and most of the interns for the SEO Global Corporate Financial Leadership Program (GCFL) with IBM and Xerox for the first time.
I gotta say that overall, I’m impressed with the caliber of people that were gathered in that room. They are extremely professional, smart, and ambitious, yet at the same time carry a sense of humility and unexpected maturity. I still felt and feel that I’m a bit different than the group of people that are in the program. By no means does this mean that I feel more mature than them; most of them are well traveled and have experienced some things I cannot fathom. It’s not that I’m better or worse than them, just different. I don’t feel that I click as well, and I also feel that I don’t want to at times. The latter, I do not completely understand why.
I attended the West Point’s graduation ceremony on Saturday morning wearing my Army Class A’s. President George W. Bush was the speaker, and security was fairly tight. Gates closed at 8:45 AM, and the ceremony began a bit late (the president had arrived late). The speech, overall, was alright. He first started off with a few jokes, but once he started his 40 minute speech comparing his reign against terrorism with that of Harry Truman’s leadership against the emerging Cold War, it literally made people fall asleep. After his speech, the Commandant and the Superintendent read the names of all 800+ graduating cadets. I thought it was especially cool how President Bush shook everyone’s hands. He took a special liking to the last cadet, who he warmly greeted with a hug.
There were a lot less people with Class A’s at the graduation, and it was a special feeling, being same age as of many graduating cadets, yet with a Combat Patch sewed on my right shoulder and proudly displaying my enlisted rank. Being in such a wonderful stadium filled with more civilians than I first imagined, with future leaders of the Army proudly graduating into the ranks gave me a sense of pride I hadn’t felt before in my 5.5 years of military service. I’ve been on active duty and reserves, overseas and CONUS, and had fallen under the command of Army, Navy, and the Marines. But to see so many people of my age who have endured 4 years filled with excessive discipline that is West Point made me reconsider my pending enlistment contract termination. Yes, that morning was that powerful.
I had forgotten my suit at the chapel I had stayed at the night before, so I went through the rest of the day in my Class A’s. Entering orientation at Columbia University in my uniform, I drew a lot of attention away from the speaker on the podium. People just treat you differently when they know you’ve been in the military. Even though they have no idea what you’ve been through, they treat you with unparalleled respect. I liked that very much… which is exactly the reason why I need to keep my military involvement away from others.
Training continued for a week, with Monday the 29 off for Memorial Day. I became sick the night before, so I didn’t feel like doing much but I still went to the city to visit Matt. We walked around a bit, visited the City’s Central Park (which I still believe is the best part of NYC), and finished the night eating out with his parents and watching a movie.
Peter, another intern at IBM, commented one day that he knows he’s going to get somewhere far. I don’t know how far I can go, but I’ll make no fool of myself when I say that I want to become the CEO of IBM or any other Fortune 100 company. The first time the crowd rushed out as the subway doors opened for me about a week ago on the 23rd, I thought to myself, “what makes you think you’re better than everyone here?” At Somers on the 31st, as I walked into IBM’s huge cafeteria, I answered that question, disappointed, “You’re not.” The company is huge. 330000+ employees and counting. Hundreds, if not thousands of interns. I’m Asian with an accent, lack any real corporate experience and knowledge, and scored a meager 1300 on my SAT. My advantages? I’m starting out in Finance as an undergraduate, something IBM does not do extensively, as they tend to hire engineers at the undergraduate level and MBAs for graduates. I’m also starting out in New York, where the chain of 4 offices, Armonk, Somers, White Plains, and Poughkeepsie, make up the central headquarters. If I get a full time offer, I’ll also be starting out with a rotational program, 15 months each in Pricing, Planning, and Business Development, also known as Mergers and Acquisitions. IBM hires only MBA graduates for the latter, and experience in that field could literally catapult me into a management position in 4.5 years or in an MBA program at a prestigious university. Oh, and IBM pays for tuition, and for those that they really want to keep and develop, also pay full salary on top of tuition as they progress through their MBAs.
So overall, I’m very excited. But I’m also fairly overwhelmed at the amount of information. Learning curve is pretty steep: there are acronyms and jargons that rival the military’s, and hallway after hallway of people with years of experience with not enough time to develop you along the way. Target quotas are due soon, and integration cycle is about to become a bigger picture. The CEO will be hearing from different departments about their revenue targets, and I share a little office with a full timer who seems to work much faster with computers than I do. My part in this whole process is small but could very well be significant. The experience I can gain here is limitless: already, I’ve been told that my internship is only limited by my own ambitions and today’s 2 hour notice for a deadline on a spreadsheet was a small glimpse of things to expect here. I’ll keep on learning, and build upon experience day after day. For the next 10 weeks, I’ll keep feeding my hunger that leads to realized potential. If I fail, I’ll learn how to succeed. If I succeed, I will only look forward towards my next success. Somewhere beyond the horizon is my limit. But I will keep pushing that limit until it is further than anyone’s dreams. Try to stop me now. I guarantee you will fail.