First Day at PNC

Hello everyone!

I had my first day at PNC today and it  went very well. I wish I'd had more energy though - the lack of sleep last night (3 hour time difference :/ ) made the day very belong.

As I mentioned yesterday, I practiced my bus route (I take #58 for those of you familiar with the area), it's about a 15 minute bus ride. However, I was running a bit late (Quincy refused to leave my bed and I didn't want to come back sneezing all evening) but I was out of the door 2 minutes before its scheduled arrival. Just as I was crossing the street, the bus zoomed by. I waved my arms and ran in heels but the bus driver just looked dead straight ahead. It wasn't like Barcelona where I knew the next bus would come in 5-7 minutes. It was another  half hour. I was supposed to meet the HR recruiter at 8:20 am in the lobby but the next bus didn't leave till 8:15 am. Fortunately, I had his number and told him I would be running late to the breakfast. It was a breakfast with a senior VP of retail banking. Lesson learned #1: Always be 7-10 minutes early for the bus stop


PNC owns several buildings downtown so I got confused as to which one was which but I eventually found the correct one.

This is the building I work at

The breakfast went well but I could tell a lot of of the interns were really tired (thank goodness I wasn't alone!) due to the lack of questions when the VP asked students questions. It was a tad too early for an interactive session in my opinion. But he had some valuable advice and tips for how to make a great internship experience at PNC.

Next, the HR Recruiter gave me a tour of my floor (5th floor) and introduced me to my manager and some of my peers. Essentially, Enterprise Services deals with issues that affect the company enterprise wide (e.g. mergers, acquisitions, operations). Then, he took me to an all office staff meeting where I was introduced to the whole division. The senior VP that interviewed me for Enterprise Services jumped out of her chair and greeted me with a hug when I arrived. Gotta love that Pittsburgh hospitality. I will be working in the SIO division of Enterprise Services, which stands for Strategic Initiatives Office. Think of it as internal consulting...but I will be consulting the bank's multiple lines of business. I heard tons of corporate and banking jargon today but I know I will be working on business resiliency (BR as it is fondly abbreviated), which is essentially creating a roadmap for continuing operations under adverse conditions. I'm still getting a hang of the lingo but I'll get it soon.

I talked to my office mates, there's 5 interns total and 30 people in the whole division. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, I look forward to working and getting to know them soon. And I found ONE californian in the office.

The weather has been nice overall. They say it's really hot but I don't think it's uncomfortable. It's slightly muggy but a lot better than I expected.

I ended up waiting 45 minutes for the bus ride home, it was 20 minutes late and I got there 10 minutes early and my stomach was hurting from hunger pains from waiting so darn long. Lesson Learned #2: Bring a book for the bus wait/ride. Makes time go by quicker

Random pic from my bus stop... I was really bored waiting

I got home and finally met Janice. She's absolutely lovely :) Very nice and friendly and she was kind enough to take me grocery shopping at Trader Joes (yayyy!!), Whole Foods (didn't buy just oohed and aahed), and a cool hippy-like co-op. She pointed out all kinds of neat neighborhoods in Pittsburgh (Fun Fact #1: There's over 80 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh!), so it got me really excited about exploring (ahem shopping) this weekend. There's also a farmers market tomorrow afternoon near the house, so I'll definitely be dropping by.

After grocery shopping, I came home to Janice's two cats, Quincy (who you already know) and Saddie. I'm more of a dog person, but I don't mind cats. But for some strange reason, these cats really like me and won't leave my room. Quincy hides under the bed making me think he's not in the room then as soon as I close the door he leaps out from under the bed and jumps on my bed. Saddie is quite moody but she likes me now too. She's not as clingy and attention-fussy as Quincy but she certainly likes her fair bit of attention. I also met Zeke today (a couple month old border collie). He's super high energy and adorable, I love it. But the cats don't get along too well with him unfortunately.

Quincy exploring my closet *sorry for the awful pic it's from my phone*

Meet Ms. moody Saddie

First Day in Pittsburgh

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Pitttsburgh. Here's a re-cap of my first 24 hours here...

Flight:
I had a direct flight from SFO to PIT (4 hours and 30 minutes total for those of you interested in coming out here some day), but it was delayed an hour an a half. So instead of arriving at 12 am, I arrived at 1:30 am. The flight was decent, nothing special except for the fact that I had the whole aisle to myself, so couldn't really complain there. Once I picked up my bags at baggage claim, I took a taxi to Janice's house (I will be staying with her this summer and found her through airbnb) The taximan was very friendly (like most Pittsburghers I've met so far) and gave me all kinds of booklets, flyers, and guides for first-time visitors and of course a copy of the Sunday paper. The taxi was a bit more expensive than my first choice of super shuttle, but it was so late in the evening (or early in the morning should I say), that I had absolutely no energy to figure out public transit nor did I have the patience to go through various stops with super shuttle.

Settling in
I was greeted by one of Janice's super friendly cats named Quincy. He's grey with bright green eyes and loves fusses. Then, I called my parents (with 5% of my phone battery left) and Nick to let them know I got home okay and finally fell asleep around 4 am with the A/C going full blast.. Since I met Quincy a few hours ago, he's greeted me at the foot of the stairs (my room is on the second floor) every time I come in and he follows me everywhere. As cute as he may be though, I find myself sneezing an awful lot around him (I'm allergic to cats). But as long as I wash my hands after I pet him, then I'm good to go. 


First morning in Pitt
I woke up around 11 am, so a decent 7 hours sleep even though I need between 8 and 9 to function properly. I unpacked and sorted my clothes, medicine, bags and what not. Then I showered and headed off to the nearest grocery store, Giant Eagle,  because I had absolutely no food (asides from the food my mom packed for me on the plane). But I really needed ingredients so I could start preparing my lunch for work and cooking dinners. After an hour and a half in the grocery store, I came out with a bill of $90 and that didn't even cover everything I originally wanted. I didn't realize until I saw the 10 grocery bags that it would be a struggle to walk uphill with the groceries. Let's just say I had to take a few breaks to manage the load. 


I tried taking some pictures but I'm having issues with my camera. It says "lens issues", which makes me really sad because as you all know I love taking tons and tons of pictures and posting them to my blog. I'm going to recharge the battery and see if that works, but if not I have to send it to a Nikon repair center :( 


Tomorrow's my first day of work, so check back for a post on that. 


For dinner, I plan on having cooked lentils, chopped tomatoes, and tuna with a drizzle of olive oil, red wine vinegar and a bit of sea salt...a dish from Spain :)