Final Post

This is my last day at my internship. :( At around 11, Mrs M. told me that Mr. O (superintendent) wanted to talk to me. When I went into his office, everyone from the building was there, clapping, and Mr. O handed me a bouquet of flowers and a card. It was so sweet! I felt very lucky to be surrounded by such caring people.


Part of the final assignment is to reflect, so that's what I'll be doing.

Interning here certainly made those weeks fly by. If I were stuck in school right now... well, it wouldn't be pretty. But that's who I am. I like to go out and do things. I'm a get-'er-done person, you could say. Having this opportunity to do something bigger than myself was very rewarding. Someone actually sees the work I end up doing. If I don't find that mistake on that bill, some employee will be upset. To know that I wasn't just doing this for myself motivated me every day. For students with an interest in this school system, I would definitely suggest interning here. This internship gave me a different perspective. It taught me how to work in a professional setting. I learned what I would like to do with my life, or at least, what I might enjoy. I also know now that choosing to go to a business school was a great decision.

I have less than an hour before I have to return to my high school and make my presentation. I need to start cleaning out my office :'(.

Maybe I'll get up that 300 viewer mark today. Thanks for reading :)

My Last Real Day

Since Mrs D. and Mrs H. will be out tomorrow, this is my last real day here. I took some pictures around the office and worked on my final paper. I can't believe it's over already. It seems like my first day here was just last week, but that's not true. I hope that after graduation and vacations and the removal of my wisdom teeth, I'll be able to help out here once in a while.

I don't really want to take everything down in my office or take my K-Cups home. It just seems too soon. And what about all the billing statements I've yet to go over with Mrs H? I have so much extra scrap paper, and I didn't even use up one pen! This is sad. :( 

I had fun, though, and I learned a lot. I'm really glad I did an internship here.

my office smells like cleaning supplies

If you know about WPS's Human Resources Department, you probably heard about Mrs D.'s infamous board. She has this monstrous white board that covers two walls, with a magnet for every person who works for this school system. The magnets are color-coded and carefully placed under categories that identify the school or department they work for. Monday and today I worked with the board on identifying the school and position that all tenured teachers work at and have. After many hours of searching, I finished the list. I then worked on  cleaning the orange magnets so they can be used next year, which is why my office smells. That's been my day. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but I spent 5 hours on that list. Yikes.

I didn't post yesterday because I stayed home, sick. Hopefully that was a one-day illness, because prom is coming up and I am not missing that.

Because I was so busy Monday and Wednesday, the filing pile has really started to grow. Here come the paper cuts....

Biggest Project Yet

Blogger's been down all day, so this post will be short.
Since 9 am I've been working on a spreadsheet containing all of the teachers. I have to add their grade, step, and position. WPS employs over 400 teachers, full time. 454, to be exact. So it has taken a lot of my time. I was given more access in Munis, though, so I can see more information about teachers. It's interesting. And some of them live really far away. I feel bad for those commuters. I will not be finishing this project today, I can tell you that. Gotta go work more...

"The reward for having feelings is great joy."

So says my fortune cookie. I feel like its one of those sayings where it looks like its saying something, but it's actually not.

A few more pamphlets had to be thrown into the new hire packets, so I spent a few hours this morning getting that down. Besides that, I've been working on my paper. It's just over 4 pages right now. A huge chunk of the paper is my telling the history of the bulletin board. I had quite a few roadblocks, with getting permission to use the pictures, then printing them, finding one of the preschool, and decorating to best of my ability. After all, there's only so much I can say about paper work.

I was not able to post yesterday because I had my AP exam. I didn't go to my internship that day, but rather got a good night's sleep, reviewed a little, and took my nearly 4 hour long exam. I forgot to pick up the picture of the preschool that I took and had printed, so I'll have to do that sometime today. Hopefully that will fill the hole in my bulletin board and it will look lovely. I hope that they keep the pictures up there for a little while. More than just over the summer, I mean. Believe it or not, I've actually spent a lot of time making it look nice (and I'm not the patient type!).

My vase has been empty for a few days now, so I'm hoping to swing by Market Basket and grab some flowers to prettify my office. I love flowers. They just make everything better! (As long as the flowers don't appear sickly.) I got a lovely compliment a few days ago on the $10 Marshall's picture that hangs on my wall. Mrs M. was saying how well it compliments the other pictures on the wall and how much more interesting it makes the office look. (To my skeptical mother: See! It is pretty!)

I spoke with Mrs D. and she agreed that I might be able to assist them this summer. After graduation and my vacation, I'll get in touch with her and see if they might need some help. Mrs H. told me a few days ago that August gets quite busy.


Note: Carnies still here. Walked fast past them on the way to my internship today. Yikes.

"The carnies are here."

The above is what the administrative assistant, Mrs H., just said. The Apple Blossom Carnival has arrived in our parking lot...

When I drove past it last night on my way to a meeting, it brought back so many memories of being scared, hearing rumors of classmates getting sick on a Zipper, the falling-apart appearance of the rides, and the expensive tickets. Oh, and those creepy carnies. At least the fried dough is yummy. I don't think I'll be attending the carnival this year, unless you count having to walk through it for the next 4 days to get to my internship.

Today I've worked on the bulletin board a bit more. It's looking pretty full. I added the mission statements for the schools, which changes the board from just something pleasant to look at, to something containing information about the schools. My picture of the preschool was printed today, so I'll pick that up later and finish the board tomorrow.

I have to run back to school a bit early today to work on the senior trip. It's in a few weeks, so there's a lot of information that has to be thrown together. About 250 kids are going on the trip... yikes. Hopefully I can finish that all up today, though.

Pretty Pictures!

I hung up 10/11 pictures of schools for the bulletin board. I still need to add a picture of the preschool, so I sent a file to be printed. Hopefully I'll get it this week. Since I am horrible at art, it took me a very long time to measure the pictures and cut them.(They were printed on one huge sheet of paper.) I hope it looks nice when I finish, not like something a 6 year old made.

This week's assignment is something about a 'success story'. I'm not sure what I should write about. Maybe that this internship helped me become more independent? I learned how to manage my time? I learned how to multi-task efficiently? Yes, yes, and yes. But I'm not sure how I'm going to f ill 5 to 7 pages with my 'success story'. I learned that no one understands my organization except for myself. I also learned that I would be  happy working with numbers the rest of my life. I suppose I should have known that, seeing as I love Sudoku so much. But regardless, I am not excited for this paper.

busybusy!

I was planning on coming in around 12:15 today. I had Stats, I had some large pictures printed, and helped out with the senior Disney trip. But printing those pictures took about an hour, and there was a lot to be done for the Disney trip. When I finally could leave, I went outside to see that the buses had blocked my car in. Wonderful. The bus driver refused to move for me, so I ended up sitting in my car for another 15 minutes. So now that I'm finally here, I am eating my lunch. In a few minutes I have to go interview the superintendent as my weekly assignment. I'm actually supposed to interview the HR director, but she's away this week and I forgot to interview her last week :( . Thankfully Mrs H. suggested interviewing Mr O., so that's what I'm going to do. Since he only has time today, I have to prepare right now.

Finished!

Today I concluded my packet project. That is 50 packets, with over 100 sheets in each. Guess how many paper cuts I got? (scroll to end of post for answer) I think for the rest of the week I'll be working on the bulletin board. I found some beautiful pictures by a wonderful photographer named David Fingerhut and someone at the high school is going to print them for me. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the preschool attached to the Central Office yet. I asked another senior, who is doing photography as his internship, to help me, but he has not gotten back to me yet. :( Maybe I'll have to add that picture last. I tried to plan out how it will look, but nothing ever turns out how I plan. I'm not an entirely artistic person. I can't color inside the lines. I can't cut a piece of paper in half without it looking like a 5 year old cut it. My handwriting leaves much to be desired. But maybe, just maybe, I'll make a beautiful bulletin board. But $5 says less than 10 people will look at it while I'm still interning (not counting people who work here).

Also, I answered the phone once today. Yay!

Answer: ZERO!!

Tuesdee, May 3rd

Hello! I've been working on the same project today as I did yesterday. I compiled all the papers that I needed and started to make the packets. I have about 28 of the 50 done right now, so I'll finish them tomorrow. All the different sheets are in this organizing rack, but there are some packets and booklets that don't fit, so I put them next to the rack. By now, I've kinda memorized that order that everything needs to go in so it isn't so bad. The first time I finished a packet, it took be five minutes.

 I wonder how the superintendent does everything. All day I've seen people meeting with him or looking for him or calling for him. Sometimes he's running around to the schools in our district. He must drink a lot of coffee.  I don't blame him for taking a vacation a few weeks ago.

A women stopped by my office and asked where Bettie was. I felt horrible because I still barely know people's names. I told her that I was an intern so I wasn't quite sure of who everyone was yet... but she soon found the right office: HR.  >< I should have known she meant Betsy (Mrs H.)! I felt so blonde. After she left, I found out there isn't even a Bettie in this office....

When the cat is away...

First of all, yes I forgot to post yesterday. I'm sorry to everyone who was looking forward to my post (i.e. my dad). So here's what I did yesterday:

Mrs D. is off this week because her daughter is getting married on Saturday. (How exciting :) ) The office isn't much different, except that sometimes Mrs H. has the radio on. When I first started, I thought about listening to Pandora, but I figured it wasn't appropriate. But I love working with the radio on. Just like driving with music, it just makes everything a bit more interesting. I started a new project, making packets for the new hires. They won't come in for a few more months, but it's a large project. I went through thousands of sheets of paper yesterday making copies. Thousands. I basically hogged one of the copiers all day. I had one packet that I was copying that took 45 minutes to finish. It was like 29 pages long, front and back, stapled. And I had to make 50 copies. I think some people were rioting over the copiers. Whoops.

Yesterday was also the beginning of open enrollment for next year. A few parents were in the hallways filling out forms, hoping that their child can join the school system even though they don't live here. They have a fee to pay so that their child can go here, but I think that makes sense because they don't pay our town's taxes. And anyway, the fee is minimal (in my opinion).

My internship adviser told me that he liked my shout out to him in my very first post. I'm glad/excited he's actually kinda reading this (or anyone else not including my parents. Sorry mom and dad.). So hello again, Mr. C. You're really cool. I enjoyed pysch class this year. Especially Criminal Minds. Not so much memorizing all of the development theories (Paiget, et cetera). Oh, and I wore lederhosen once when I had to dress up at Freud. That was interesting.. at least I got a decent grade.