Personal

Primed For Safeco

My mentor, Cathy Caruth, rocks
My manager, Scott Wolkens, is cool
Safeco, the company, is wonderful
My job experience so far is amazing

I am an Associate IT Business Analyst Intern
Product Technology Services (PTS)
Personal Policy Services (PPS)
Sounds professional huh? I can’t get enough of it, even if I am only an associate intern!

The entire program so far is so exciting and I love the get togethers we have. Just talking about what we are doing and finding out what others are doing is so interesting. Working in a corporate environment is definately an entirely different experience that honestly can not be emphasized nor taught. You just have to be there to know. It is only my second day at work and I already have reflected so much about what work life is like, what management must be like, the limitations and restrictions, complications and complexities that happens in order to create simplicity, understanding, ease, convenience and abilities for our end users with the products produce whether they are systems, policies or recommendations. I could go indepth, but I think I will hold off until I get more invovled and can accurately assess my experience and provide more insight as to the internship program’s objectives and how successful they were in executing their goals. Plus, I have a lunch meeting with the Vice President of Commercial Underwriting, Tom Troy, my point of contact with Safeco.

So far I have been doing a lot of online training. I am reading about the culture and policies that are upheld by Safeco. Learning a lot of definitions and acronyms that mean a lot of different things and some even industry standard concepts that just have a Safeco flavor such as Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is Safeco’s Structured Development Framework (SDF). Go figure?! Anyways, I did actually get to join a meeting about my project (DMV Liability Report – Product Support Services). I actually sorta followed and asked questions about the entire procedure and what the deliverables would look like. I can see where a lot of the things I learned from my education play a role in the thoughts and questions that formulate in my head. They were pleased to hear the questioned that I asked. I also spent a portion of my day using their terminal sessions and looking up accounts and reports. I got to see my dad’s insurance rating, my sister’s, some people from California – this kid had so many violations it was crazy, but I can’t exactly say since that would violate multiple rules and agreements so I’ll just leave it at that – and other stuff. I got a pretty good idea and understanding of insurance.

After work I got to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory that was Safeco sponsored so free meal, drinks and dessert! Doesn’t Safeco sound awesome?! Tomorrow I get to take a tour of their data center and other Redmond buildings. All in all this first week, though tiring since I’m not used to such scheduling, has been magnificent. This is good and hopefully it continues because I have to do this for the next 10 weeks, and maybe even more.

Buy me plants or something so I can decorate my plain desk!

Any plans for the Fourth of July? We should plan something!! Or just get drunk and party. Which ever, I want to kick it!

I leave you now with pictures of work:

The mighty tower

My plain Wayne cubicle

A closer look

This is the open environment that is to promote collaboration and groupwork. Defeats the whole office space stereotype. No one has a real office with a door, not even the CEO.

*Edit:
- I sold my speakers for $85 in five minutes on craigslist. I love having bass again.
- I’m not reading The Lexus and The Olive Tree anymore because I don’t feel like reading about globalization, and instead will read Sources of Power – How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein. I picked that up yesterday along with Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dunber. I’ll let you know how those turn out.
- Laundry smells good.
- I miss the Banana Republic gang