5 days until Freedom

There's something rather strange about being an intern. I feel like 3 months is about the time on a job that you start actually understanding the way a company, a department and your job works. And here, exactly 11 weeks later, I'm getting ready to break free, again. While the paycheck has been nice and the experience has been good, I'm ready to return to Virginia, though not without another trip under my belt (off to SF next Monday!!).

Friday, my intern class took a tour of the collaboration lab. It reminded me of James Bond meets sustainability. Quite an interesting experience. We even got to try some new product. One of the products sounded horribly weird and yet tasted fantastically good. Afterwards, we had lunch in a nice private conference room and the CFO essentially joined us for dessert. There were some interesting questions raised. I asked him about relieving stress and work-life balance. He said he trained his body not to be stressed, much like you train your body to fall asleep on an airplane. I understood the analogy, yet, I'm not sure I'm convinced. As for work-life balance, that wasn't a problem for him either. He believes in everything he has done, he has had a choice and so if he was reviewing a 10K instead of attending his son's baseball game, he was exactly where he wanted to be. It sounds like, long ago, his dream was to be successful in the work place and so he marks that a priority, a very interesting perspective.

One of my Darden classmates, who is also interning here, asked about him not having an MBA and what he thought about the degree given that many of us are returning for our second year. Again, we received a response I was surprised to hear. He mentioned that if we found an MBA necessary, that it would open doors, but once in the door, it doesn't really matter. I almost got the feeling that he thought the value of the degree is not what we believe it to be, and while I understand the argument that once you're in, you must perform. I do think, especially in this organization where more people are CPAs than MBAs that MBAs help round out thought. Plus, MBAs tend to be financial analysts versus straight accountants. Quite thought-provoking.

We rounded out Friday with final presentations. It feels good to have that out of the way and I'm not quite sure what to make of my last week. I'm tying up loose ends and will leave work on Friday after lunch. Part of the reason is that my badge dies at 11a and the other is that I plan to drive due north, back to C'ville. Ooo-wee, I’m excited.