Work Begins
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Yesterday was my first day at work. Everything went well—the building is huge. Even some of the people that work there weren’t 100% sure of how to get to certain conference rooms! Most of my day was spent being introduced to people, filling out paperwork, and attending meetings. I received a photo ID badge, a laptop, and my very own cubicle (name plate on order—jackpot!). Mike also informed me that I will be receiving my own Wacom Cintiq© tablet for the summer—for the non industrial designers, this is an awesome piece of technology that consists of a 20-something-inch screen which can be drawn on with a digital stylus. Today basically entailed two of my superiors giving me mixed signals when each had respectively left the room. I was told by one to rearrange some furniture and re-organize some display models for potential customer tours. When I was in the middle of it, the other came and told me to stop what I was doing and put everything back (apparently Guy in Charge #1 didn’t inform Guy in Charge #2 of his intentions. After they had their own mini-discussion, I was put to work with a digital floorplan under the instructions to fit a certain number of cubicles in a certain amount of space. Of course, neither #1 nor #2 were available for most of the day, so most my inquiries fell on my co-workers (all of whom are in the same boat as I am in regards to this project, which has supposedly been in the works for months with no progress). Finally, at the end of the day, #1 (Shane MacGregor, by the way—my manager) and #2 (Curt Croley, Senior Director) got together with me and discussed my proposed plans (and of course, what I need to change tomorrow). Although this sounds somewhat tedious and that this entry is taking a turn towards “whiny”, I am hopeful for the rest of the week—although I expect tomorrow to be similar to today. Shane insists that on Thursday he will brief me on what my main project will be for the summer so that I can get started on ‘real’ ID work. Overall, I enjoy the atmosphere so far, and all (not most) of the people are really nice and seem very interested in my development as a designer. I was starting to wrap this up, but now that we’re on the subject of people, I will note that although the design team is very diverse in age, it is also comprised of a decent number of younger, fresh-out-of-school folks. I would say that there are about 20 people on the design team, which is comprised of Marketing Strategists, User Interface Experts, Human Factors Experts, Liaisons to other countries (Japan and Korea mainly), and (duh) designers. There are also probably numerous other disciplines as well, but I am not exactly sure what everyone does yet. There is also another intern named Ally (a Human Factors major from Cornell) and Jason (who will, along with myself, be an Industrial Design intern, but has not yet started yet). Ally is very nice, and (depending on how Jason is) I think we will have a fun “class” of interns this summer. Everything at “home” is going pretty well, I have added a few more photos of the house, one of which was taken because I was finally fortunate enough to park my car under the covered “car port” outside (which is surprising because it is attached to our house, and none of my roommates own cars…). Anyway, I apologize for the “stream of consciousness” style I have adopted here, but you probably know that I’m not a big fan of editing and doing extra work of any kind (kidding). I will keep updated on the latest developments!
Yesterday was my first day at work. Everything went well—the building is huge. Even some of the people that work there weren’t 100% sure of how to get to certain conference rooms! Most of my day was spent being introduced to people, filling out paperwork, and attending meetings. I received a photo ID badge, a laptop, and my very own cubicle (name plate on order—jackpot!). Mike also informed me that I will be receiving my own Wacom Cintiq© tablet for the summer—for the non industrial designers, this is an awesome piece of technology that consists of a 20-something-inch screen which can be drawn on with a digital stylus. Today basically entailed two of my superiors giving me mixed signals when each had respectively left the room. I was told by one to rearrange some furniture and re-organize some display models for potential customer tours. When I was in the middle of it, the other came and told me to stop what I was doing and put everything back (apparently Guy in Charge #1 didn’t inform Guy in Charge #2 of his intentions. After they had their own mini-discussion, I was put to work with a digital floorplan under the instructions to fit a certain number of cubicles in a certain amount of space. Of course, neither #1 nor #2 were available for most of the day, so most my inquiries fell on my co-workers (all of whom are in the same boat as I am in regards to this project, which has supposedly been in the works for months with no progress). Finally, at the end of the day, #1 (Shane MacGregor, by the way—my manager) and #2 (Curt Croley, Senior Director) got together with me and discussed my proposed plans (and of course, what I need to change tomorrow). Although this sounds somewhat tedious and that this entry is taking a turn towards “whiny”, I am hopeful for the rest of the week—although I expect tomorrow to be similar to today. Shane insists that on Thursday he will brief me on what my main project will be for the summer so that I can get started on ‘real’ ID work. Overall, I enjoy the atmosphere so far, and all (not most) of the people are really nice and seem very interested in my development as a designer. I was starting to wrap this up, but now that we’re on the subject of people, I will note that although the design team is very diverse in age, it is also comprised of a decent number of younger, fresh-out-of-school folks. I would say that there are about 20 people on the design team, which is comprised of Marketing Strategists, User Interface Experts, Human Factors Experts, Liaisons to other countries (Japan and Korea mainly), and (duh) designers. There are also probably numerous other disciplines as well, but I am not exactly sure what everyone does yet. There is also another intern named Ally (a Human Factors major from Cornell) and Jason (who will, along with myself, be an Industrial Design intern, but has not yet started yet). Ally is very nice, and (depending on how Jason is) I think we will have a fun “class” of interns this summer. Everything at “home” is going pretty well, I have added a few more photos of the house, one of which was taken because I was finally fortunate enough to park my car under the covered “car port” outside (which is surprising because it is attached to our house, and none of my roommates own cars…). Anyway, I apologize for the “stream of consciousness” style I have adopted here, but you probably know that I’m not a big fan of editing and doing extra work of any kind (kidding). I will keep updated on the latest developments!
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