Bored at Work: July 9

"What to do?... What to do?..."

That is the quandary that I find myself in at the moment. I'm currently trapped in one of those dead periods at work when there is not a whole lot to do. Nothing new has come along yet and everything else has been done already. And so I sit here wondering how to fill the gaps between nothing and something. Which, of course, led me to write this blog post nearly 10 months after my last posting.

A little update then: it is currently summer vacation for this guy, and I happened to secure a summer internship at Honeywell Process Solutions. I got hired as a summer intern in their engineering division and am currently involved in setting up and recording testing procedures for different types of gas meter measuring and reporting devices. This requires a lot of email sending, meetings, and waiting for parts to come in, periodically broken up by moments of intense activity when actual testing gets done.

Now, Honeywell is a large company, but this isn't one of the big offices. I work in a small building of maybe 50 people, and of those I see maybe 3 or 4 on a busy day. This bears a lot of responsibility for my mostly uneventful work schedule and, like I said, unless something critical comes up, there are large amounts of down time between projects. Still, the atmosphere is very relaxed and casual, and the freedom to get work done how and when I want (deadlines notwithstanding) is a blessing. Plus, I can come in and leave work whenever I want to, provided I get my 8 hours in. Lunch is even flexible: I can take one early or late; it doesn't matter! So instead of being tied in to rush hour traffic like the 9-to-5-ers, I can come in at 7:30 and be done by 4:00. Not having to deal with the slow death that is highway traffic is another relief.

The people here are nice to work with, not very uptight at all, which makes it better to work here. The other interns (there are 3 of us here) are pretty cool, too, and hard workers. Overall I'd say the atmosphere here is a good one, not at all unpleasant. The pay is good, the hours are good, the people are nice; what more could I ask for from a summer job?

And at the very least, I have a job, where some people have been without one for a very long time. I get to work in my field of choice and get paid to do it. And for that alone I have to thank God.

I'm not just saying that, either. Without God's provision, I would not be working where I am right now. In fact, I probably would not be working at all. The story of how I got this job is still so crazy to me, and it will probably be crazy to you. Here's how things went down:

It was maybe a month or so before I came home for the summer and my dad was bugging me again about looking for an internship. I had dilly-dallied on looking for a job (admittedly the job market intimidated me and I didn't feel like I had much to offer a big corporation) so I opened up OSU's Engineering Career Services site one Monday evening and browsed through the job postings, most of which didn't really apply to/interest me. I came across Honeywell's posting, which was very brief but seemed promising, and sent in my resume on a whim.

The very next day (Tuesday) I got an email from my current supervisor asking if I wanted to set up a phone interview on Wednesday. Seeing as how I hadn't had ANYONE bite on my resume before, I happily agreed to do the interview the next day, then spent the next 24 hours in nervous anticipation at what was my only shot at a job to date.

Wednesday came and I set up my computer and phone for the interview. The time came and the phone rang and I was off. We did the standard interview things: intros, what I knew about Honeywell, what classes/labs I had done, what I wanted to do with my career. Things went really well and I felt like I had gelled with the interviewers (plural; there were two people interviewing me. No pressure, huh?). This was my chance to snag a real job. They told me as we hung up that they would be making final decisions by Friday and let me know sometime the next week.

Well, Thursday came and classes along with it, so I was busy for most of the day, but when I got home there was an email in my inbox from my supervisor. I opened it up, read the words, then proceeded to do a victory lap around my house, fists held high in triumph and joy. They had offered me a job! In the span of 4 days, I went from not knowing at all what I was going to do this summer to having a clear (and lucrative) plan. And I honestly can say I had nothing to do with it. All I did was submit a resume and then answer questions during the interview. I believe it was only by God's plan and blessing that I ended up with a job.
 After all, even the stuff on my resume, I owe to the talents and abilities He has given me.

It still seems crazy to me how I got this job. Mind = Blown. Just because of that story, I am thankful so much for this job, including those down times where I just don't know "what to do..."