Game day at work!

With the Mason office friends

Everyday at Citi has been a learning experience. It didn’t stop there; today we went to a baseball game as a whole office, actually 2 offices. I was with the Mason’s team and we had a “party suite” at the stadium reserved for us. We got to go to a ball game during working hours!! It was a lot of fun. We had amazing seats and there was food and lots of beer and drinks. No wonder why people love the working environment at Citi. They for sure know how to keep their employees happy!

With TLPs and interns

After some time, I went and sat with my fellow TLPs. Although it was towards the end of the game, I got to spend some time with them too.

The field and us!

Today I learned that Citi has something called the “team building event”. Every quarter, the teams go out and have some quality time together. I am all excited about it.. Hopefully my team decides to go to a real fun place!

All these small things can go a real long way. The most important assets to a company are its customers and its employees. One thing which amazes me about Citi is the fact that we have a fun-filled professional environment. Everyday in the past one month of my rotation has only made me realize what a wise decision it was to join Citi.

My 8-hour home

My little space

I finally got a chance to decorate my cube, rather hang up some certificates and “Gator” license plate! I really like the Blue Ash office.. The office is well designed and has a very professional feel about it. Actually what’s not to like about the office, it has amazing cubicles, excellent elevators, friendly staff and very good security. To top it all I am on the Executive floor! Although I spend about a maximum of 1-2 days per week at this office, I like it here.

Now that I have one of my office cubicles set up, I should start working on the other one next week! Hopefully I will find some more things to decorate my cube with.. after all this is my home for a minimum of 8 hours a day ;)

Realization!

I have been to many summer camps and a lot of training sessions and have never seen folks remaining in constant contact afterwards.

It has been two weeks since Bootcamp got over, but till today we are all in touch with each other.. I don’t think its just technology (email, IMs etc.) which is bringing us together but the one month of bonding and literally living together. In that one month, all of us were at work by 8.00 am sharp and we were there until 6.00 pm minimum. After that most of us went together for dinner and a lot of the days we had team meetings or project tasks to work on after dinner.

Bootcamp was an opportunity for us to find new friends and also find out a little more about ourselves. I definitely have made wonderful friends and I am so glad that I did.

Life after bootcamp!

My rotation assignment started this Monday and so did the meetings ;) I am fortunate to have got this position since this project is one of Citi’s big initiatives for 2007! My manager is awesome and I already have access to all the background reading materials. I have a lot to catch up and very less time to start contributing.

We are having group meetings in the same room where the TLPs had the Bootcamp. And the best part is that we have the same catering service for lunch which makes me feel like I am still in Bootcamp!!

I got my cubicle and it is very nice. My friend and a fellow TLP sits right next to me! It has been three days since I got my cubicle and I am yet to visit it!! (Been in meetings pretty much from morning to evening) Hopefully I will have the time to set up my cube next week :)

The Grand Finale of TLP Bootcamp!

With my team : CitiUnited

The final presentation day was very demanding. We were eager to show how our system, which we built over 5 days, worked. My team did a splendid job and we were delighted to see our hard work come alive.

With Laura, Vijay, Steve, Jason and Mike

With team Forte - changes loud enough to be heard

The 40 of us graduated with flying colors!! It was an awesome feeling. Two of the teams won the best presentation award and there were individual awards too. From my team, three of us got awards.. Matt got the Technical contributor award, Nik got the Team player award and I got the outstanding Leadership award.

With our trainers: Adam, Dan and Tom

All these recognitions made us realize that we are always watched by people and we need to make sure that we do the right thing at the right time. If we are working in a team, it is not enough if we do our assigned individual tasks but we also should make sure that the team is doing well. Success of any project is measured by the group and not by the individuals.

TLP class of 2007

The best thing about Bootcamp was that each one of us moved out of our comfort zones and worked for the team. People with different backgrounds coming together, working in a completely new environment and competing with other teams.. Need I say more about what we got out of the training? An amazing opportunity for us to become a part of Citi!

And the winner is...

We had a hot dog eating competition at work. All of us were in the middle of finalizing our presentations for the next day and working on our project deployment. It was a refreshing break.. not so refreshing for the participants ;)

Brandon, Abe, JP and Rosy were the participants. They had to eat 2 hot dogs and whoever finished their hot dogs first, won! We contributed a dollar each towards the prize money.. We had background music and Janice played the commentator. Brandon won the race!!

Although Brandon didn’t like these pictures, it was too tempting for me to post them here :)

Working in an extremely competitive environment can be very stressful at times (oops, all the time). All these small fun-filled events make our day go by a lot easier.

Grand finale!

Tomorrow is the Big day, we have our final presentations. We spent the last 5 days designing and developing our project and got kind of done with the “impossible task with an immovable deadline”! We have a panel of 7 reviewers tomorrow and they are senior management people. Tiffany, our program manager has also come to Cincy for the presentations. We have an award ceremony where the 4 best teams will be chosen..

My team - Citi United: Nikhil, Brandon, Matt, Kevin and me

Today we worked on the slides and got our demo working.. My team members are amazing with lots of energy and enthusiasm. It was great working them and I hope our team work will pay off tomorrow.