Tuesday, May 18, 2004

 
The first wave of summer associates arrived yesterday, which made the halls noisier than usual. It's a day we all look forward to, mostly just because the new faces make life a little more interesting. The "Welcome Breakfast" seemed like a pretty big success -- in the past we've started out with computer training right from the get-go, but decided to do a leisurely breakfast in the morning instead, to help the summer associates get to know each other, and then we eased into the paperwork and training later in the day. Already we've had a dress code issue -- one guy came in wearing what could only very charitably be called dress pants. One of the recruiters pulled him aside and casually mentioned he might want to invest in some pants that were more beige. Hopefully he got the hint. We're very casual here -- polo shirts are fine -- but there's a limit when there are snaps up the side of your pant legs. Not acceptable. I think a girl at lunch confessed she's bulimic -- she didn't want to order dessert, and after some prodding said that she'd only throw it up anyway. It was an awkward moment for all. But dessert was delicious. There's a story circulating the halls today about a summer who complained about the size of his office. I'm having trouble believing, although maybe I shouldn't. We've not yet really started distributing much work -- today they're in research and writing training, and tomorrow each business unit is going to give a short presentation. By the afternoon we'll have assignments handed out. We're trying a more centralized system this year than we did in the past -- all of the assignments from one central contact point, so no one falls through the cracks. A few years ago we had someone go through the whole summer without producing a single piece of written work. He got an offer, because we couldn't figure out if it was our fault or his, and luckily he's done fine, but we'd rather keep some more control on the process.



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?