Four hours. Four days. Four ABBs.

I averaged four hours of sleep but I survived our four day, four ABB, whirlwind adventure.

My laptop didn't.

Wednesday - ABB Raleigh:  We ventured to Centennial Campus for Power Products and Power Systems overload.  I have to admit it was really weird being on campus as an ABB employee and not an NC State student but it was a great day overall - except one thing.  I got the blue screen of death.  Fortunately, it was my work computer and not my personal computer; unfortunately, ABB takes forever to fix computer issues and there's never an easy solution.  It's been a major fiasco but I won't bother you with all the details.

Despite all of this, we had dinner at Brio Tuscan Grille which was great but the best part was getting permission to pay for cabs with our corporate cards.  We had a good night on the town but that made for a very long Thursday...

Thursday - ABB Pinetops:  We left Cary in the morning and headed to Pinetops, NC. The hour and half lecture about I don't even remember what was painful but the shop tour was pretty interesting.  They actually do a lot of materials related processes in Pinetops, who knew?!  Then I got to take everyone back to South Boston and show them what it's actually like.

We had a relaxing cookout with the people of ABB South Boston which was a great break from the fancy three or four course meals we had been having.  After the cookout, we took the coolers back to Berry Hill, our super nice hotel, and ended the night at the pool.

Friday - ABB South Boston:  It was great to be back in South Boston today.  I didn't have to work on any quotes though so that may have been why.  Everyone headed back to Raleigh after lunch except me.  Thanks to my lack of laptop, I got to leave work and go home to finally sleep.

It's been a very long but very fun week and I am very excited about the group of people I met this week.  The future of ABB looks bright and it looks like a lot of fun. :)

First Business Trip

I'm writing this from a hotel room in Cary, NC.  Yes, I chose to stay in a hotel rather than stay at my parents or a friend's house.  It makes me feel like a little more of an adult... and let me tell you, ABB hooks us up.  Free meals, free drinks, and as if I don't already feel like a tiny person, they gave me a king size bed.  I seriously feel like three other people need to be in the bed with me.

The trip is a training event for the Power and Automation Leaders (PALs) rotational program that I am a part of.  It consists of visits to four ABBs in four days.

Yesterday, I worked in South Boston 6 hours, paid a visit to my parents, and checked into my hotel around 530.  Then the day really got started.  We kicked it off with a trainee only event at Natty Greene's brewery in downtown Raleigh.  I have to admit that I spent the day looking forward to a few Buckshots (it's a beer.. they haven't changed me that much in SoBo) on ABB's tab but was highly disappointed when they weren't serving Buckshot in the loft.  I met all of the current trainees and some of the former trainees as well.  After our boss left, we hit up a couple more bars even after he reminded us that "nothing good happens after midnight."

So it was a short night sleep before a looong day at the Cary office.  We spent most of the day listening to people talk about HR information, ABB products, processes, R&D, and many other things.  Quite frankly, I'm already sick of all of ABB's TLAs (three letter acronyms) and I've only been here two and a half months. 

I'm not saying that the 9.5 hours in the Cary office wasn't a ton of fun but I missed the most exciting thing to happen in South Boston since the Cantaloupe Festival.  As I'm sure you've heard, there was an earthquake in Virginia today.  The South Boston plant shook from the earthquake and was evacuated.  From what I hear, nothing was damaged but it was pretty entertaining to watch people.

After all of this, we had a very fancy dinner at Jimmy V's Steakhouse.  It was absolutely delicious but they probably could have rolled me out of there.

I got back to the hotel around 9 and snuggled up with my laptop to work even more!  I'm sure the South Boston people will have something to say about the emails I sent them at 10 PM when I return.

Anyways, it's been a very long day and hopefully I will actually be able to sleep tonight.  Tomorrow is another day, another ABB. 

How many days until I can retire?!

I'm totally just kidding about wanting to retire!!  I'm actually enjoying the early mornings, cute outfits, and "hard work."  Today marks my sixth day of working for ABB so I figured it's about time to update you all on my experiences thus far.

I'm currently located at the South Boston, VA facility which focuses on small power transformers.  If these are "small" power, I can only imagine the size and complexity of the larger transformers!  Even though my degree is in Materials Engineering, my first rotation is in the marketing department.  Surprise, surprise... I'm the only girl. My friends seem to think this is funny since it seems to always be true for me but I kind of prefer it, less drama that way.  There are females around when I need a break but the guys are very nice and they definitely enjoy messing with each other - sounds like MSE all over again, if only Lisa were here.

But you're probably wondering what I "do."  The truth is I meet a million people a day and try to remember their names.  It's kind of hard because the majority of people that work at ABB are older gentlemen (to put it nicely) and they all have super generic names like Scott, Bob, Mike, Dave, David, etc.  I think everyone should have interesting names like mine because they're easier to remember although it has been spelled three different ways and pronounced at least a couple different ways since I started...

I have been reading about transformers and the learning curve is steep!  I'm picking it up quickly and I'm sure that I will be fully functioning independently very quickly.  I have been on a factory tour and will hopefully get to experience more hands-on learning.

I've spent many hours asking people for help, asking people who else I can ask for help, talking to people on the phone trying to get help, and pushing buttons on the service center phone line to eventually get someone to tell me who else I need to ask for help and not really help me at all.  There have of course been logistical issues as there always are when you start a new job only complicated further by my status as a Raleigh-based employee; however, the problems aren't that bad just a nuisance to me actually being able to work like I want to.  So I've been a little bored at work and everyone has told me to enjoy it while it lasts.

So that's what I've been doing but what I really do is quote and sell transformers to other companies.  It sounds kind of boring but it's not as bad as it sounds.  They threw me into it and so far I've initiated nine quotes totally over a million dollars in product.  I'm sure that once all these quotes actually go out to the customer I won't be bored anymore.

I'm only scheduled to be here for eight months but I've already been asked twice if I would ever consider staying.  Seven days ago my answer would have been 'probably not' but I think it's turned into 'maybe.'