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 ~
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