Last Day At Verizon Wireless

Yesterday was a sad day at the office, as it was my last day as an intern at Verizon Wireless Headquarters. First to recap everything it has been a great summer and a great experience for myself. Being an IT person, it was amazing to experience the other side of things as the customer working in HR. This also opened my views up to entire new areas that I would have never seen before. So I really enjoyed that aspect of this entire summer opportunity.

On Wednesday Melissa and I presented our experiences in "Town Hall" in the Verizon Center. The Powerpoint presentation consisted of an overview of everything we did over the summer and was about an hour in length. Everyone seemed to really enjoy our presentations we were even told it was one of the best presentations seen in the intern programs.

I discussed basically how I got here with a little background story about myself. Then I talked about my main project I worked on being the Issues Tracking System. Next I discussed the Error Reports that I helped work on and bring back up to date. Finally I ended my section with a brief explanation of PGP and how we would implement a secure email protocol for our communications with Metlife. I then passed the presentation on to Melissa and she talked about her experiences.

After she concluded her section I came back up and we explained some of the Intern Events we went to and how they impacted us. It was really great to talk about those because not that many people knew about all the things we did throughout the summer. It was real fun just to tell everyone how we contributed to Verizon Wireless and how great of an experience it was for us. We concluded by just thanking everyone that came that day because it really did mean a lot. Throughout the summer everyone helped out by answering questions and just having someone to talk to.

I did very well on my exit interview and got a chance to go around an say goodbye to everyone and thank everyone again for the summer. I really feel that I learned a lot more about the business world in general by this experience. I improved on my writing skills and just picked up on new areas and techniques on presenting information to people. Unfortunately the majority of my work is confidential and Verizon Wireless property under the NDA forms I signed. But, I have the knowledge learned working with Peoplesoft, project management software, and presentation skills that will never leave me.

Once again I would like to thank everyone over at Verizon Wireless for a great summer and making some great friends with my fellow interns. I would also like to thank the recruiters for getting me in the door, Rider University Career Services for helping me out with the connection, and my adviser for this internship back at Rider for reading this blog and keeping up to date. Thanks again I can't wait to get back to school in 2 weeks and tell everyone about my experience.

The Big Presentation....

Well this is my last week here at Verizon Wireless HQ. I'll try and update on what has been going on lately.

Today we had a HQHR meeting introducing different areas of the company. Some presentations were made about different teams in the organization and what they do. It was interesting seeing how the entire process works for some departments and how they deal with different situations.

Yesterday I spoke with the Director of HR - Benefits to discuss how my summer went. I went over different things I learned and skills I picked up. We then talked about what could be revamped for future interns and how to improve the overall experience. I was told nothing but great things about the work I did and was greatly appreciated for my efforts. I also got a Verizon Wireless duffle bag as a gift and I thanked him very much for the entire experience.

The big day is tomorrow. Planned and scheduled is a presentation in Verizon Center's "Town Hall" about my experience and contributions over this summer internship. Since my other co-intern Melissa ,who is also a Rider student, works in Benefits too, our managers decided that we can present together. We have our Powerpoint ready and are making our final changes tomorrow morning. I will discuss first my experience and projects I worked on, followed by Melissa talking about her contributions during the summer. We should have about an hours worth of material to talk about and can be cut down if need be. There will also be a short Q & A section after we present for around 20 employees from all departments. It should be a great experience and I am very excited for tomorrow. I will post some of the slides up probably tomorrow on everything included in the presentation!

IT sets it straight....

On Friday I checked in with our contact at IT on what the status is with our project. The news wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. As an unofficial word, our Work Request has been submitted and passed through to IT. When a request is initialized to IT, the project is put into a queue, and we seem to be at number 8 in that queue. Unfortunately the projects ahead of us must be completed to get started on our own development process. When I asked when they expect our development process to begin I was told at the earliest, sometime in late September!

So I had to be the bearer of bad news to my manager and everyone else involved with the project. I tried to explain the reasoning behind IT and not just look at this delay as something severely a bad thing. Of course I will be leaving here on August 16^th to complete my internship but there has been much progress made already towards development. One of the most tedious jobs was gathering requirements which I accomplished early on. Also determining each user’s current process gave us a better idea on what we actually needed in this issues tracking system and what we can do without. Also developing a requirements document and work request were the final steps on getting the departments attention and get the ball rolling on development.

The worst was out of the way...almost. After the project was brought up and discussed by the HR directors and IT staff, they had a few more questions for me. They really wanted a better business case on why we should be developing the application in Peoplesoft rather than utilizing another available in-house software solution. HR and IT really wanted to explore every option we have before laying down into a set software solution. In my final weeks here I’ll complete the request and finally grab the spot in “The Line to IT.”

My manager thanked me for my contributions and assured me that my work has been a big step towards a much needed solution. She is even putting the project into her performance appraisal in the list of accomplishments for the year. Now I realize why every single thing I did was told to be documented somewhere and not to keep anything bobbling around in my head left unwritten. Because when I make my way back to school, the project must continue with one of the other team members available, and I’m not just going to be a few cubes away!

VZW Quarter 2 Results....

This afternoon we were invited to attend the 2^nd Quarter 2007 Company Performance meeting held right here at headquarters in Basking Ridge. The conference was held exclusively for VZW employees with over 20,000 locations all over the country listening in via Webcast technology.

A main topic that was discussed was financial earnings as compared to the other top wireless carriers. Included in the presentation was how VZW stands in the wireless market now and what they are planning on doing for future investments. Lowell McAdam talked about VZW and its plans on following the bidding for the new 700MHz spectrum to be deployed later in January. As the weeks continue the rules will be positioned by the FCC on the auction for this new communications band. Rumor has it on the internet that Google might be taking high bid for it. We'll have to wait and see.

Also included in the presentation were some new devices that will be hitting the shelves which I can’t disclose any other information about. But I did get to play around with some of them at the previous week's "Young Adult Marketing Session." The infamous iPhone was mentioned as well, stating that by it using the 2G EDGE network it's really a limiting factor for some data users as compared to our devices which reside on a much faster 3G network. Some strategies were mentioned on how VZW will compete with AT&T's products and services. Also some FiOS implementation numbers were mentioned and the service is rapidly expanding throughout all available areas.

Some other goodies were mentioned which again I can't disclose but are definitly going to give Verizon a bright future. All in all it was a great experience to be part of an organization this huge and experience something like this. Ill get an update later this week on the project status.

A Much Needed Update....

I haven’t updated in a while so here is the scoop on what has been going on with me at VZW.

The second week of July on Wednesday, I met on a conference call with an IT Senior staff member in Warren to discuss some goals and limitations about the project. We use Cisco 7960 series IP phones which are linked with software to our desktops. This allows us to talk on the phone and view another user’s screen in a different location over the internet. We talked about what features are needed and some possible solutions. The ending conclusion was the idea to utilize the existing Peoplesoft data infrastructure for the new system.

IT checked back with us the next week to view the “Delivered Peoplesoft” package and see what was available for us to use. They came across a very valuable “Notes” section in the disability tab. Also some other areas were discovered which are not currently used but are available to us. All in all it was some very good news to hear and the project is almost onto the road of getting started. The next step was to submit a Work Request to IT to get the project rolling.

On Thursday and Friday I had the Access Level I training class brought to us by New Horizons Learning Center. The class was very informal and I learned a lot of new information about relational databases and structures. It was amazing to see that some people use Access for their job everyday but, some of the main concepts were completely unclear to them. I would guess after following a routine each day some of the other areas are overlooked by them without proper instruction. The guy who taught the class I felt was very personable and really presented the class in a smooth structure.

Monday and Tuesday I started to develop the first draft of the Work Request. The Work Request is a document that gets submitted to IT with significant information about a future project to be developed. Included in the document is a description of the process and who will be using the system. Following that is a business case on how the new process will be improved relating to cost and time savings.

While developing the Work Request some sections called for further explanation about each featured point. I created some mock screenshots to simulate what different tabs would appear like in Peoplesoft given the criteria explained. This will make the development of the application easier to visualize when in development. After developing the first draft of the Work Request, it was passed to my manager for some changes and revisions. Finally, the document was passed to the assistant director of Employee Relations to finalize any changes seen needed. My manager submitted the Work Request to IT.

Friday was another intern event labeled as corporate softball day! Basically all of the summer interns got together at our own Verizon Corporate Softball Field located right on the headquarters campus. We were split up into two teams and played a full game of softball. I felt this event really brought everyone together being that it was a casual atmosphere. The event also managed to get everyone talking to each other and really involved in working together. There was also a barbeque outside the entire afternoon with free food and all of our managers and co-workers were invited to come out and watch the game. I smacked a few good hits for my team and we even wound up winning the game!

After coming back to work at the end of the day Friday I reviewed and finalized any last minute changes to the Work Request. My manager then submitted to document to be signed off for IT to develop. I am awaiting a call back from our IT contact at the moment to work towards the development stage. That’s about it for now and I will keep everyone updated on what’s going on next.

Access Training....

This past Friday I received an email offering training for Microsoft Access 2003. I spoke to my manager and she had me enrolled in the training. The training consists of 2 full day courses brought into the HQ building by New Horizons Computer Learning Centers. I’m very excited by getting such an advantage with taking this course, because it will actually help me understand the project I am working on more in depth on how data is structured and pulled from existing tables. It will also help me with any future projects I will work with involving databases to give me an extensive background knowledge. Here is an outline of the topics covered in the Access Level I Course:

Lesson 1: An Overview of Microsoft Access

Relational Databases

The Access Environment

The Database Environment

Examine an Access Table

Lesson 2: Managing Data

Examine an Access Form

Add and Delete Records

Sort Records

Display Record Sets

Update Records

Run a Report

Lesson 3: Establishing Table Relationships

Identify Table Relationships

Identify Primary and Foreign Keys in the Relationships Window

Working with Subdatasheets

Lesson 4: Querying the Database

The Select Query

Add Criteria to a Query

Add a Calculated Field to a Query

Perform a Calculation on a Record Grouping

Lesson 5: Designing Forms

Form Design Guidelines

Create AutoForms

Create a Form Using the Form Wizard

Modify the Design of a Form

Lesson 6: Producing Reports

Create an AutoReport

Create a Report by Using the Wizard

Examine a Report in Design View

Add a Calculated Field to a Report

Modify the Format Properties of a Control

AutoFormat a Report

Adjust the Width of a Report

Lesson 7: Planning a Database

Design a Relational Database

Identify Database Purpose

Review Existing Data

Determine Fields

Group Fields into Tables

Normalize the Data

Designate Primary and Foreign Keys

Lesson 8: Building the Structure of a Database

Create a New Database

Create a Table Using a Wizard

Create Tables in Design View

Create Relationships between Tables

Lesson 9: Controlling Data Entry

Restrict Data Entry with Field Properties

Create an Input Mask

Create a Lookup Field

Lesson 10: Finding and Joining Data

Find Data with Filters

Create Query Joins

Join Unrelated Tables

Relate Data Within a Table

Lesson 11: Creating Flexible Queries

Set Select Query Properties

Create Parameter Queries

Create Action Queries

Lesson 12: Improving Your Forms

Enhance the Appearance of a Form

Restrict Data Entry in Forms

Add Command Buttons

Create a Subform

Lesson 13: Customizing Your Reports

Organize Report Information

Set Report Control Properties

Control Report Pagination

Summarize Information

Add a Subreport to an Existing Report

Create Mailing Labels

Lesson 14: Expanding the Reach of Your Data

Publish Access Data as a Word Document

Analyze Access Data in Excel

Export Data to a Text File

Merge Access Data with a Word Document

The class course days are July 12^th and 13^th. After completing the Access Level I course, I am also enrolled in the Access Level II course. This course involves using complex querying techniques, macro creation, and maintenance involved with multiple database structures. The following is an outline for the Access Level II course which I will be taking August 2^nd and 3^rd:

Lesson 1: Structuring Existing Data

Import Data

Analyze Tables

Create a Junction Table

Improve Table Structure

Lesson 2: Writing Advanced Queries

Create Unmatched and Duplicates Queries

Group and Summarize Records Using the Criteria Field

Summarize Data with a Crosstab Query

Create a PivotTable and a PivotChart

Display a Graphical Summary on a Form

Lesson 3: Simplifying Tasks with Macros

Create a Macro

Attach a Macro to a Command Button

Restrict Records Using a Where Condition

Lesson 4: Adding Interaction and Automation with Macros

Require Data Entry with a Macro

Display a Message Box with a Macro

Automate Data Entry

Lesson 5: Making Forms more Effective

Change the Display of Data Conditionally

Display a Calendar on a Form

Organize Information with Tab Pages

Lesson 6: Making Reports More Effective

Cancel Printing of a Blank Report

Include a Chart in a Report

Arrange Data in Columns

Create a Report Snapshot

Lesson 7: Maintaining an Access Database

Link Tables to External Data Sources

Back Up a Database

Compact and Repair a Database

Protect a Database with a Password

Determine Object Dependency

Document a Database

Analyze the Performance of a Database

Countdown to the iPhone...

This past week there was a lot of anxiety and speculations at HQ and all of Verizon Wireless pertaining to the launch of the new revolutionary device from Apple, the iPhone. This sleek all in one phone is exclusively for AT&T customers only. (Formerly Cingular Wireless) The reason behind such high stress levels over here is because AT&T is Verizon’s biggest competitor in the wireless industry.

Keeping everything confidential I heard many reviews and comparisons to the iPhone from Verizon Wireless internal communications. I will say an unbelievable event on what I witnessed however on the days leading up to the launch. Sitting in my cube I overhear a conversation between some high up department directors about the iPhone. I decide to take a gander on what all the commotion is all about. As I stand there, I noticed someone holding their phone up in the air. “I would just LOVE to see an iPhone do this!” was the phrase yelled over and over again. This all being done while taking her cell phone and slamming it onto the ground repeatedly. At that point I made my way back to my desk and began to wonder what exactly has gotten into everyone here.

Is it really hatred towards the new Apple device which revolutionized the smart phone into something that is so far ahead of its time, that the only way to discriminate against it is compare how it can be thrown into the floor? Or is it simply based on the fact that the device is signed exclusively to AT&T Wireless and can only be used on their network? Did the comparison charts even completely make sense distinguishing the iPhone and other competitor devices or was the dispute taken down to an elementary school logic of argument? I could probably write a book on what I have seen, heard, and my opinions on the months leading up to this launch, but I will just leave it at that.

As for the rollout of the iPhone I think Apple did a great job as compared to AT&T. While waiting in line at the Apple store lines were separated into groups. These groups were then given the option once arriving into the store to separate. One way lead you to the quick purchase of the phone, the other let you play around with the device until your hearts content. Walking down to the end of the 500+ person line, I noticed people of all demographics eagerly awaiting their moment of glory to grab one of these phones. It was a great experience seeing how much impact the iPhone has had on the industry both from the inside and out.

A word from IT...

This morning the associate director of employee relations, my supervisor, and I had a meeting at the other subsidiary headquarters office located in Warren, NJ. Since the Warren office is mostly made up of IT we traveled there to meet with a Senior Representative of the Applications Staff to discuss our project goals. Upon arriving, I noticed the building was much smaller than the Basking Ridge HQ in which we work in.

The meeting started with a discussion of both departments who will be using the system and what their current process is as of now. This included me demonstrating a screenshot of the current Access database system in place now. Also explained were some of the problems associated with the current process. This included they way information is being sent to the ER team in form of an email Checklist. Also brought up was the lack of communications between departments about an issue. Finally we overviewed the time consumption allocated to entering employee information into the Access form.

After distributing our ideas to the IT representative she then went over some solutions we can work with. VZW recently made an immense upgrade from Peoplesoft 8.4 to Peoplesoft 8.9. The discussion made was if we can utilize the information that is stored in the Peoplesoft tool, we can then eliminate more than half the information needed to be manually entered into the tracking system. Also, by providing a baseline to work from, we can improve new features to be implemented later on as the product becomes more and more customized.

I feel this meeting was a great start and now we finally have some input from IT on what is currently feasible. By starting with a base system the project will be much more efficient rather than starting from scratch developing a completely new tool. As the Application Staff Rep analyzes how we can start to develop the features we need she will stay in contact with me. Currently I am still trying to work on creating the Requirements Document so there is a formal plan including a project overview, expected benefits, and some business objectives that will be accomplished with the further development of the Issues Tracking System.

DiSC training and other events of the week...

I forgot to mention this past Monday all of the interns were invited to participate in a DiSC Training Course. The course was focused on developing your personality style both at work and at home. It also provided an understanding on how to communicate with co-workers with different personality structures to accomplish a common working relationship. The training was good and really separated the different groups. Then each group we placed into made a short presentation on why they feel they are part of that group. I was initiated as an I, if you have ever taken a DiSC training course you know what I am talking about.

This morning I had a meeting with the director of the Employee Relations department and my supervisor to go over the work I have done with his team. The meeting went very smooth and he was surprised by all of the information I have gathered. I was told I was doing great work and a spectacular job of auditing the current process in place. The project plan is looking good so far and I will be working on a Requirements Document all next week to try and get a first draft going for the system.

Today I joined a monthly meeting via Cisco Netmeeting which discussed some common HR issues that are in place today such as paying overtime in certain situations and what is the correct and incorrect form of action for an employee. At 3pm we meet in the Town Hall for a Mid-Year review HR meeting. The meeting was for all HR employees located in Basking Ridge as well as hundreds of employees who dialed in via Cisco Netmeeting from around the country. Mostly everything was confidential in the meeting so I can't go into details. But for the most part they discussed new products and services as well as a brief overview of the new iPhone from Apple launching June 29th and what Verizon is doing about it. Well thats all for today tomorrows Friday and I'll be looking forward to the weekend!

Meet the Interns

This morning I set up a meeting for later in the week with my supervisor and the direct supervisor of the Employee Relations department. He has been interested in the ideas of developing such a system and would like to see if he can provide any input. We will discuss what the project plan is and how the development will progress in the upcoming weeks.

This afternoon there was a “Meet the Interns” luncheon at Bamboo Grill right down the street in Basking Ridge which is part of the country club. Some employees from the Benefits department came through to eat with both me and the other intern whom is also a Rider University student. The food was excellent and everyone had a great time getting to know us a little better. Even better Verizon Wireless picked up the tab for the meal which we gave a huge thanks to our department’s director for setting that up.

In the afternoon I met with my supervisor to briefly discuss some deadlines and goals in the development process. I asked her of two tasks she could get done for me by the end of the week. The first was to set up a meeting time with an IT project coordinator to discuss our future applications back end capabilities and other development issues. Second, was to get me a sample Requirements Document from a previous project to use as a guide to start working towards the development of a Requirements Document for this project.

Data Collection

The first few weeks have been going very well. Last week I set up meetings and talked to all of the people that will be using the new tracking system. After recording the conversations I then took the time to analyze each user’s routines and thoughts. I tried to determine similarities and difference between each of the customer’s data collections sheets. It was easier for me to retype my information into word documents then classify each person into an excel sheet after that with their comments.

Wednesday I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss how the project was progressing so far. I opened with my data that I gathered from all the customers and how the current system is an issue. I noted individual problems with each person as well as uniform troubles that applied to everyone currently. Each one of our users receives an email from a local HR Rep about a specific employee issue in their area. The email is sent with an attached document called the Checklist. The following is my introduction no the removal of the checklist:

"Verizon Wireless (VZW) is currently losing valuable company resources through the current process of information being transferred via the Checklist. The Checklist is mostly used by HR – Employee Relations as of right now to standardize information arriving about a current employee issue. Information on the Checklist includes: Name of the employee, VZID, address, work location, contact and attendance information, and all other health information that can be used in solving the issue. To see how much the current Checklist effects VZW lets take a look at how information from an issue flows through the current system.

First, a local HR Rep receives information about an issue and enters it into the Checklist. The Checklist is then either emailed or faxed to the HR Employee Relations Rep in VZW Headquarters, Basking Ridge. The information is received and usually printed out for a hard copy. This copy then has notes or other information that is necessary about the issue added to the folder with other related documents. Next, depending on how much time is available the data will then be entered into a local Access Database. Finally, in some situations the data will again be re-entered into a personal database or Excel sheet to keep track of which issues are currently open or closed because the current database cannot do so now.

Some data can go through an entry process anywhere up to 4 times before the issue is completed and closed out. Or some data may never make it to the current database at all. These multiple entries are a waste of valuable time for each representative involved in the resolution of the issue. The most abundant problem when trying to organize and store information is the value of the time it takes for users to input the data. Providing a consolidated, easy to use, web based system will efficiently improve workflow not only for HR but also improve turnaround time for employee in getting a prompt response about their issue at hand."

After discussing many of the issues our current users have now we came up with some solutions. The best turnout of this project will be having a web based secure site to for the HR Reps to log into. They would then be able to submit information directly to the database and have our Headquarters Employee Relations be able to view that information quickly and securely. But, as all other projects and ideas I was told to compile a backup plan in case this idea is not feasible from the start. So if IT’s parameters are to start the project on a smaller scale only within Basking Ridge HQ, then I must think of another way to distribute the data to our HQ area.

You Make the Call...

Yesterday we had an all day training session for Civil Treatment of Employees. The program introduced all the new interns to Verizon Wireless. The session also presented some current figures about Verizon Wireless and its competitors on where they stand as the top wireless provider on the market right now. This training session also provided a clear understanding on what to do in multiple situations in a corporate environment. We interacted with the given situations at hand to determine what was the right and wrong way of taking action.

Today was our official welcome into the Verizon Wireless Internship Program which was entitled “You Make the Call…” The morning session consisted of an introduction and welcoming into the program. Then, followed several speakers who explained how they built their careers and goals up while working for Verizon Wireless. The speakers were inspirational in their words and gave a positive attitude towards being part of a team here at Verizon Wireless. That was the one promising thing that I noted throughout this entire morning.

Being that we are only interns does not mean we are just getting coffee for others or making copies. We are treated as part of the team. The next 3 months will be a challenge not only individually, but as a team working towards a common goal. Our contributions will add value to Verizon Wireless as a business to prosper and grow. Our actions will be recognized and we will experience real life situations that will make a difference.

The closing statements were then made to sum everything up. The woman who spoke, which recruited most of us in that conference room, made a final remark. She said that everyone in the room was put her for a reason. We were placed here because we attended great schools and excelled in our achievements. But more importantly we were all joined in that room today because we had something special about us that put us above the rest. They knew that we would be the ones to focus and contribute our knowledge to Verizon Wireless. We would be presenting our innovative ideas not only for next 12 weeks, but to come back and continue to bring fresh new inspiration for years to come.

3rd day at the office

By the third day of working I am getting used to the environment and am starting to know my way around the building on this 138 acre campus (even though I still occasionally get lost from time to time). I now have access to my office phone and set my voicemail up. Each morning through our Verizon e-mail account, we get an inspirational quote of the day from our “coach” who works in the fitness center on campus here. This always includes health tips and upcoming events to join at the fitness center. We also receive a daily e-mail from Verizon Wireless Corporate Communications that keeps us updated on confidential pre-released news. Sorry this knowledge is for internal communications only and not for external distribution, so I cannot disclose any news available to myself.

This morning I had a meeting with my supervisor about the main project that I would be working on for my internship here at Verizon Wireless. The project includes deploying an Issues Tracking System that will be implemented later in the summer months. I started putting together a project plan which would be the guideline to follow for the lifecycle of the systems goal. I am using Microsoft Project Professional 2003 to plan and distribute time and resources to complete the tasks needed.

Tomorrow I will continue working on the Microsoft Project document and will be adding to it as the phases progress. I also have created a Data Collection worksheet to gather customer requirements. The system will be used by about 10 HR employees from the Benefits and Employee Relations departments to simplify and organize issues that come in daily. As of right now there is now way to track issues as they arise and information is unavailable for future disputes.

I am scheduling meetings to discuss with these employees and interview them on their wants, goals, and needs to have this new system put into their daily workflow routine. I organized Data Collection worksheets to assemble ideas about current operations, process gaps, and critical success factors for the new system. I’ll then discuss metrics and reporting issues that occur now and determine what can be done to further better the entire reporting process. After collecting this information from the customers I’ll analyze any risk factors or maintenance issues that could arise prior to building the system.

I stopped by the Verizon Gym today and got a fitness assessment.It is real nice to have that available for free right inside the building so, I did some boxing today after work. That is all for right now I have a new hire orientation meeting all day on Monday. Tuesday I have another orientation meeting in the morning. I have 3 interviews that I set up for tomorrow morning. Hopefully I can finish the rest of the interviews next week and get this project rolling.

First day at Verizon Wireless

Today was my first day at Verizon Wireless HQ in Basking Ridge, NJ. I am working for Human Resources in the Benefits department. Today I arrived a little early around 7am and waited in the lobby till around 8am. The other interns and myself were then taken to a room to turn in our paperwork first. We were then taken to get ID badges and parking passes for gaining access to the building.

After all of that was taken care of, I was guided to my department and shown to my cubicle I would be working in. My supervisor then gave me a tour of the department and I met some of the people I would be working with this summer. Everyone was real helpful and friendly that I met.

I got an introduction to some reports that I will be doing during my time at Verizon Wireless which I will learn more about in the upcoming weeks. By next month I should have full responsibility to handle these reports on my own and get them done every Monday and Thursday by noon which is when they are due.

I completed a few training programs which I will continue to do tomorrow and the rest of the week to learn all of these new systems. I will be also training to use COGNOS for disability claims put through from Metlife to Verizon. At the end of the week my supervisor and I will be discussing and starting to plan out my project that I will be implementing throughout the summer for a Benifits and Disabilities claims database. This project will be documented and planned out using Microsoft Project 2003.

Well that concludes my first day at Verizon Wireless. I look forward to working here for the rest of the summer and have plans to greatly succeed in my projects.