The Past Few Weeks...

Wow. It’s been a while, huh? Honestly, I kept meaning to update, but the first few weeks of work didn’t provide much fun “material,” so I kept telling myself I’d blog when I started doing a little more. THEN, when I did start doing more, I didn’t have time to blog…ahh, life’s funny sometimes.

So…here’s an update:

Dannon, Week 1: My first full week at Dannon was a bit uneventful. The entire international team (well, minus me) went on a trip to Mexico for a supplier meeting, meaning they were gone for the whole week. So, I ran the reports I run every week (mostly summaries of how our business has performed in each country and overall in the past week) and did a good bit of “catch up” work – mostly creating an instruction manual for future interns.

The weekend was fun, though. On Saturday, one of my good friends from undergrad came to town. He hasn’t been to Fayetteville in about two years, so there were quite a few “new” things to show him. We had dinner at Hammontrees – a local restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese. Now, don’t write them off as just yet – the menu includes 27 varieties of cheese, 7 types of meat, 8 different sauces, and tons of veggies. You can build your own sandwich or order one of their fabulous combinations. They also have great soup and salads. They’re located just off of Dickson Street, so we ate on the patio and “people watched” – another great thing to do around here.  For dessert we had frozen yogurt at Orange Mango (like Pink Berry or FroYo).

Also, Gigi (my puppy) turned ONE on that Sunday, so I threw a party complete with puppy & people friendly cupcakes, party favors, and a puppy themed menu.

I invited several of G’s “friends” and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Overall, a pretty good week, I’d say.

Dannon, Week 2: This week was a little bit more interesting – the guys were back in the office and had specific things they needed help analyzing. I ran a new report measuring quarterly category growth and worked with the Walmart rep to analyze the numbers. In addition to that, most of my week was spent pretending to be a customer on Asda.com (Asda is Walmart’s UK store). I would go into the site and “purchase” several different baskets of items: yogurt, baby food, and water. Then, I’d watch the site pages for ads that popped up and monitor how often it was our competition vs. us.  This research on top of the RetailLink reports helped us develop better picture of how our products are purchased in the United Kingdom (since a large percentage of the grocery business there is done online…weird? I think so…)

Once again, the weekend was kinda awesome. One of my best friends from high school is getting married soon, so we threw her a “bachelorette weekend” in Dallas. It involved a lot of laying out, shopping, and enjoying cute little restaurants in the area – Zoe’s Café (below) was one of my favorites.

Oh, and of course, no trip to Dallas would be complete without a stop at Sprinkles Cupcakes! If you’re ever in the area, you MUST go by there. This is their Salted Caramel cupcake (fantastic), but nothing beat the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. They also do “pupcakes” - I got one for Gigi.

 

Cupcake places are apparently the new “thing.” One just opened in Fayetteville – Bliss. It’s located just off the square and is adorable (though my heart still belongs to Rick’s Bakery)…maybe I should write a post just dedicated to the local bakeries (you learn where the best ones are after you’ve helped plan a few weddings).

Dannon, Week 3: We were SO busy this week. I ran my weekly reports on Monday, then, on Tuesday, we were bombarded with requests for report corrections for the Operational Tool that each country uses. Apparently something had messed up the dates and several reports had completely disappeared. It took several hours, but we got everything sorted out finally. Then, on Wednesday, we spent the entire day in a training meeting.

Dannon has a program called the Dannon Leadership College (DLC), and all employees go through it. The Wednesday session was a “refuel” – basically a review/refresher with some troubleshooting and problem solving thrown in. It focused on Dannon’s C.O.D.E. philosophy, which stands for fostering a culture of Commitment, Openness, Doing, and Empowerment. It was actually pretty neat (despite being 8 hours long and the fact that the air conditioning wasn’t working in the conference room). It helped shed some light on why Dannon works like it does and made sense of a lot of the vocab that we’ve been using around the office. I felt a lot more connected to the company afterwards.

We also had several “bonding” experiences this week. On Thursday we welcomed a new intern (Justin). He’s an undergrad working with Dannon for the summer. Now that we are both there full time, the office took us out to lunch at PF Chang’s. Then, Friday, we surprised Shana (one of the girls on the domestic team) with a baby shower – she’s having TWINS! She seemed really touched by it all. I like these moments at work. It makes working with people much more comfortable and fulfilling when you feel connected to them on a personal level.

This weekend will, yet again, be eventful. As part of the internship program, Dannon sends all of us to New York for orientation. Since my best friend lives in Manhattan, I’m flying up early and spending the weekend with her before I head to White Plains for the meetings. I will have to work while I’m there, but it’s worth it. Plus, I can’t wait to see Whitney (we haven’t seen each other in a year!)

I’ll let you know how orientation goes – I’m sure it’ll be interesting seeing as there are about 100 interns going. Til then ~

Exams = OVER! I now have one third of an MBA!

FINALLY!

This past week was, to say the least, a bit stressful. We had four exams and two assignments to survive AND it was a busy week at work. In addition to the weekly reports I run, I have to analyze two additional reports during the first week of every month (one of which we turn into Walmart...so it's kinda important). Adding those additional hours on top of all of the study time was almost too much.

I survived though, mostly thanks to my "group." We've built a nice little network within the program, and since we all have different strengths and backgrounds, we're able to help each other out. We studied for several of the exams together, and though I am normally a proponent of individual study time, I do have to admit that the group discussions did more for my comprehension than any amount of solo studying would have.

I think that shows a key difference between the graduate program and my years in undergrad. Before, most group work was very one sided (one person does all the work and the rest of the group benefits while doing nothing noteworthy). This semester, we've all contributed. We understand that we'll get more out of the time if we help each other, so we spend time discussing confusing problems and share methods that help us work through them. I'm looking forward to the next two semesters knowing that I have this tiny support group.

For now, though, classes are over, exams are finished, and "summer" is here. Our focus for the next three months: internships!

Remind me, why did I want come back to school again?

So...it's exam week. What does this mean, exactly? Well, it's different than I expected...

As an undergrad, exam week meant very little. Honestly, I rarely had finals. I was always lucky enough to get the teachers that didn't want to grade finals if possible, so we either: didn't have one, I didn't have to take it, or we took our "final" during the last few weeks of class. This made for a rather easy, stress-free exam week (even if it did mean a few extra all-nighters the weeks before).

This year, life is NOT that easy. Apparently, in grad school, exam week involves temporarily moving into one of the study rooms at Walker, consuming nothing but gallons of coffee and the occasional piece of gum, and becoming so focused that all of your conversations involve references or analogies to the subjects you're studying...

To be honest, I look back on exam week as an undergrad with a bit of nostalgia: non-productive study groups, hour long coffee breaks, color coded index cards, and just enough stress to keep me up for 1...well, 2...okay, maybe 3 extra hours.

Grad school exams are so very different. I have NEVER been this tired. And, oddly enough, even though these exams are harder and more important, I can't seem to motivate myself to stay up. I actually hit a point each night where I think, "What's more important, the next eight pages of notes, or my soft, warm, comfy bed?" Sleep almost always wins.

What makes this exam week even more difficult is the fact that we aren't just taking exams. We've had two additional assignments due (one of which was a group assignment) and I'm still working 15 hours a week (in Bentonville). No problem, right? Nope, that's fine, just let me tack on another meeting and a few study groups to my already full schedule (if I don't learn anything from this program, at least I'm coming out with EXCELLENT time management skills). I mean, really, look at my schedule for the past week:
 
Friday: Work 8 - 5, Drive home in traffic, Isys homework, Study for Marketing, Work on Finance
Saturday: Work on Finance, Group meeting for Isys, Networking event in Springdale with the Dean
Sunday: Church (which didn't happen), Work on Finance, Study group for Marketing
Monday: Study for Marketing, MARKETING EXAM, Study for Econ
Tuesday: Study for Econ, ECON EXAM, Tutoring session...

...and this week has been fairly uneventful - usually I have to add in class time, community service projects, social events, etc. Not including time I'd like to spend talking to my roommate or playing with the puppy or sleeping or eating a decent meal or grocery shopping to cook a decent meal or doing laundry or cleaning my room...I need a few more hours in my day.

The upside? This will be over soon. Just two more exams (Econ and Isys) and I get 3 months off to re-charge. I know I wanted to do this (to come back to school, to live this life for a little bit longer), but it's moments like this, where I'm just deliriously tired, that I wonder why...

I'll let you know next week, when I've had enough sleep to remember