Sunday, January 13, 2008

Week 24 - Gotta love 2008


Hey there, hi there and hello there folks. What a great start to the New Year if I do say so myself. I hope everyone's 2008 is starting off the same!

Started in the Compliance department this week and was handed a project on Day 1 to be completed by Day 4...wow. There are some pretty nice ladies (I think there's only 3 guys in the whole department) working on the 4th floor. I do feel pretty special that I am currently in a corner office with windows and a door (some people call it a conference room that I have to leave when they have meetings, but you have to look on the bright side of things I suppose:). The project I worked on seemed it would be quite difficult at first, but after just talking with folks it turned out to be an issue of communication after all. I did a presentation of my findings/recommendations and even though I don't think they'll use my suggestions, we brought everything to the table and solved some issues they'd had for some six months now...so I'll call it a success! We had a pretty fun SIFE Analyst photo shoot this week for the duck...don't really know what it's all about, but I finally got up to the 19th floor which was very plush:) I also started in with a new mentor this week...Joe Smith who is the 2nd VP over Business Process Excellence (or something fancy like that). He seems like a great guy to get to know and hopefully we can get out on the bike trails together. We also had a pretty big project presentation for the initiative I've been working on for pretty much the entire time I've been here. It went pretty well I think; able to get the point across and bring everyone to the table and get on the same page so I would call it another project presentation success for the week;)

Also had another Toastmasters speech this week about New Year's Resolutions that went swimmingly...then I was nominated and elected VP of Membership for the club...I need to learn how to say no I think! We had another SIFErs in Action meeting as well this week that was wondermous. We had a few guests join us, and when we put all the numbers together since we've gathered our group has volunteered >140 hours, donated more than $450 to charities, gathered more than 130 cans of food for the homeless and begun numerous literacy initiatives for the community...this all makes me very-very excited!!! Can't wait to see the rest of the projects come to fruition in the months to come.

I've learned that our basketball and bowling teams are the cellar dwellers of their respective leagues, so I'm just beginning to go out there and have a good time:) I hadn't done some volunteer work for a while so I signed up for the Pine Mountain Trail Association (PMTA) clean-up day on Saturday. I met up with some older guys and we hiked in the FDR state park to level out some trails, put up some signs and clean-up a bit. It was a gorgeous day in the mountains, so I hiked around a bit after I was done working (pictured above). I think it'll be fun to get into hiking so I'm going to join the PMTA here pretty soon I do believe...should be good times!

Getting pretty excited to host my first non-family guests from Iowa next week...Jenny is kind of a crazy-flying-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of lady...which is pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I'm looking forward to some good times...hope she enjoys my Betty Crocker-skills (or lack-thereof).

Welp, I should probably pack for the Georgia Annual Chamber meeting I'm going to tomorrow afternoon-Tuesday up in Atlanta. Should be a good time...get to hear Governor Sonny Perdue for the first time so I'm looking forward to it. Hope everyone continues to have good times...peace out.

Alwayz,

Nate

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