Approximately a week or two after I got my license, my engineering internship began over the summer. And it has been wonderful ever since. Well, now it has. There were a few ups and downs the first week!
I came in and I actually had pretty boring, uneventful first day. I went up to the Rosemont office to get orientated, even though everything to do with that building was basically irrelevant to me. Anyhoo, I show up at my actual office down on under around eleven or so am. I was told to read the Enterprise contract by Dave the Supervisor and got to it. But that document was a thuuuudaaaaa. It was sooo insanely huge. It took me a full four hours to get through most of it. ME. Ugh it’s a little embarrassing, but its definitely less interesting than most books I read, and suuuuper dry. I got let out early too at three, and that’s when I sat around for an hour waiting for my ride xD
DAY TWO however was a whole other story…
See, Supervisor Dave gave me his key to the office because he hadn’t had one made for me yet, and as he gave it to me, he said it was okay because I’d be in the office before him. He was right about that, but that sentence implied he was going to come to the office eventually, now didn’t it? DIDN’T IT?!
So as one could guess, I was just sat at my desk/taking advantage of the other intern, Brady, being away from the desk he was hogging which actually belonged to Scott (Phew. Confusing, yeah?) and having read through the given contract a second time, I sat around waiting for Dave to come to the office.
(I arrived at 8 am and expected someone to show up a little later, say around 9.)
9 am: No one. Oh well, maybe they start even later, like 10.
10 am: Still nobody. *Shrugs* Guess people are running late, or went on site first? Oh damn, but the silence is really getting to me. I guess I’ll pace around a bit.
11 am: Uh….why is it still just me?! Okay, wait, calm down. I know the silence is DEAFENING at this point, but calm down. Forget the silence for a second. Ugh, but now you’ve noticed your gut being ripped to shreds inside of you. If only I could curl up on the floor…No, can you imagine how awkward that would be if someone walked in? Focuuuus. People. Co workers that aren’t here. Maybe they had a meeting in Rosemont. Yeah. If they’re on their way back from that, they wouldn’t make it to the office anytime before noon. It’s all good.
12 pm: Maybe the meeting ran late. But someone SHOULD be here by now….Um, distress texting time. (As I crouch behind Brady’s desk because DAMN these cramps.)
After talking to Fatima, and mutually deciding I had been abandoned in the deserted office, I called Ammi and came up with a plan. I waited until 12:30 to text Dave the Supervisor of my uncomfortableness with being left alone and how I planned to leave if no one came in and if there was nothing for me to do.
No response. For a long time. I texted Ammi to come get me. Especially with all my texting and phone usage waiting for someone to come in, I had basically drained the battery. Of course, I was overconfident in my phone’s battery life and hadn’t packed my charger with me. (I’m a commuter. Have I learned nothing?!)
1 pm: I am furiously pacing back and forth through the office only to run into Brady walking in to use the bathroom and grab some gatorade. Anyhoo, I introduce myself and I kind of explain my predicament. He advises I leave and that it’d be no big deal. (He also mentioned how Dave doesn’t come in on Tuesdays usually and I’m just- I don’t even know -.-” )
I still hung around, but I didn’t get a response from Dave until Ammi was here and I was packing up to leave. He said it was fine and apologized for there being no one.
The next morning, day three, I regretfully come in because I’m dreading being reprimanded for leaving early and maybe being thought of as a sissy and a little kid for being left alone…
But to my surprise, Dave was incredibly sorry and apologizing loads because appaaaaarently there’d been a huge misunderstanding between all the workers where everyone thought someone else was in the office with me. When in actuality there was no one xD
Day three wasn’t much of office work since Dave has been suuuper busy with some crazy projects recently, so I was allowed to go with Dobsin as he “took shots” which was engineer talk for taking height measurements at different points (based off of plans to correlate with elevations as I later learned and got to learn about). We were out in the field and it was super interesting- especially compared to how boring the office had been recently!
So I hung out with Dobsin the rest of that week and we get along pretty well. It was loads of fun and I learned quite a bit about it. However, come week two, I got dragged into helping Joe out, the other engineer who had Brady as his trusty sidekick on this year’s MFT project. That’s when I got acquainted with using the (measuring) wheel xD
But yeah, I’ve been floating between these two projects and still left to my own devices in to office a bunch. I think this is my third or so week right now…? Yeah, that sounds about right.
And now that the prologue has been completed, I can actually share some stories from work! ^_^ (Seeing as I’m not falling asleep for once!)
-Frostie
On the other hand, it’s still alright ish.
JustSomeSugar&Sunshine 