Ah, the Internship

Alrighty, a few notes about my internship.

Actually, I never did write about how my interview went last Tuesday. Huh, ok, I'll start there. I arrived at Pro Capital dressed to the nines in my new suit, buzzed at the door, and stepped into a residence turned office. Una, assistant to Oliver the head guy, led me into a nicely furnished conference room. I took out my teal portfolio (Brits apparently don't believe in traditional folders...) that held a few copies of my CV (resume to you Yankees) and waited a few moments before Oliver came in. Basically, he just sat me down for about ten minutes and asked about my basic strengths and weaknesses plus what tasks I'd like to do. It all went very well, and the best part was that he asked me when I wanted to start! I said the following Monday so I'd have some time to finish up some touring. Fantastic!

First impression of Oliver: he wants things fast. Very fast. Learn it, do it quick. Be accurate, but fast. Another slightly odd thing- I've been told all my business studyin' life that your GPA doesn't really matter so much as what you've done (jobs and such). Gotta have skillz, man. Um, yeah. Oliver mentioned he took one look at the top part of my CV and wanted me in. Very weird. But seriously, that guy's smart. He used to be a bond trader and speaks at least four languages plus a smattering of two others. He conducted one of my fellow intern's interview in Japanese!

But, he's a bit intimidating. Smart guy, knows what he's doing, expects you to know what you're doing. Pretty sure he's going to yell at me at some point. As Mom says, character building!

Anyways, about the job:
I leave for work at 7:40 AM and get back around 6:15 PM. Working hours are 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM with an hour for lunch (Oliver is french so he's into lengthy lunches). That leaves about 45 minutes each way for travel. It's a bit of a long day. I get back in the evening and am busy planning for weekend travel with Katie Beth or catching up on email and whatnot. Oh yeah, not to mention figuring out what to feed myself. I haven't made any fantastic suppers since the chicken cacciatore, but I hope to find some recipes for next week.

I got to work on Monday and was greeted by an intern who has been working at Pro Capital for three weeks now. He (John, an Indiana University senior) took me over to the conference room because Oliver was on a conference call and sat me down in front of a packet and a rather thick book on hedge funds. He said my job was to read today. Um, ok.

So there I was, sitting in the conference room, reading for two hours before Oliver came in and brought me into the main back room where all the computers are. Again, he said I was to read all day to learn about hedge funds. Oh wow! That's a lot of reading! By the afternoon, I was reading maybe a sentence every twenty minutes and spacing out the rest. It was a lot to take in, especially because I've never had a finance class. Basically, I had to learn the essentials of finance (what I didn't already know) and then emphasize in hedge funds.

Did the same thing yesterday, but this time the newest intern (Ray, a junior from Michigan University) arrived and needed to read the book. I read through my packet a few more times but mostly sat and waited. And waited. And waited until about 5:20ish when we could leave. I piddled around on the internet a bit too. Oh! We (the three interns) did go to Bloomberg London yesterday for some training. Wow, that is a neat program. Bloomberg offers a financial data service that provides all the information you could EVER want about finance, and let me tell ya, that's a lot of info. I don't think I'll get to work with it all the time, but I am definitely looking forward to using it. Very, very cool.

And I've decided I don't like sitting for eight hours. Seriously, that's why Americans are getting fat. For the past four weeks, I've been running around everyday, so I'm not used to sitting for such a long time. In fact, yesterday I got on Google maps and found the locations of Tube stations near Earl's Court (the one closest to me). When I'm heading back to the flat, I think I'm going to start getting off the Tube a few stops early and walking the rest of the way. I found a route that passes through a park, which might be nice.

Speaking of parks, we get an hour for lunch and I like to get out of the office then (otherwise, you feel compelled to cut your break short since you're right there in front of your computer), so I've been searching for a park near the office. While on the internet yesterday, I found a small one, so I hope to start bringing my lunch and heading out there. Until I get my act together (which will definitely be soon), I have to buy lunch-- which, regularly, is £3. And last year at the pharmacy I routinely turned down buying $4 lunches because I thought that was too much! Arg.

So today was a bit better than straight reading. John showed me what he had been working on which is updating Pro Capital's hedge fund database. Oliver runs searches and needs to sift through the info in an organized manner-- hence the interns. It wasn't terribly interesting, but at least it was something to do. I basically transferred data from Bloomberg to the database all day. But tomorrow, Ray and I are starting a special little project. I'll try to write about it tomorrow night.

My program warned us that our work in the beginning would be pretty boring and basically grunt work. Our employers (/free labor recipients) are figuring out what all we can do. But really, I don't imagine Oliver can be impressed. It's good though, this is real life.

Oh, and Katie Beth, Melissa (a gal Katie Beth met in her class), and I went to church tonight. I'm always amazed by the friendliness of the people there, which is nice after jumbling up my schedule by beginning work. And again, Pastor Jared presents such an interesting way to approach Biblical analysis. He takes us through a small passage, and we break it down into inter-connecting phrases and words. Very interesting, and I always love how it works my mind.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30. By 10:00, I was tired! I guess that's what you get for getting up at 6 AM every morning. But it is nice to have the flat to myself- get to eat breakfast and have quiet time. Boy, I was getting tired tonight around 9:30. This old twenty year old is gonna head off to bed soon here. I've got more thoughts on working in general, but I wanted to get down a brief description of what's gone on the past few days. Lots of things rollin' around this head 'o mine. Lots to think about.