Days 8, 9, 10, 11:

Wow, I am SO SO far behind on my "day-to-day" posting... guess that's what happens when you get busy. But I am determined to keep up with this blog, so if you're still reading, I ask that you bear with me :) This week has been crazy! It's kind of taking me back to middle school.. you know the time when you have just finished up the summer, and you have one week to do/get/learn everything before you start the 7th grade. Better catch up on that Math packet you only did two pages of, spend way too many hours shopping for new mechanical pencils at Staples, and all the while try to enjoy the last week of freedom you have. Yeah, this week has been that crazy.

Monday: The first day of this week was great! I finished up a round of email briefs, which was pretty satisfying! Then I sat in on my first meeting with Radius, a group we work with at USA Football that monitors, tracks and analyzes our engagement online and through social. After the meeting, I got a chance to sit down with my boss and our social media coordinator to find out more about the city. We chatted about my interests and what kind of things I could find in downtown that I would really enjoy: rooftop restaurants, jazz bars, and Symphony on the Prairie were some of the highlights.

Then, I went to lunch with some other department heads and two new interns, Eric and Hope. We went to the City Market, which is this big building with all kinds of food booths - I went Greek, which was a great plan. The place was delicious, so I'll definitely be headed back there soon. The people I work with are all just super friendly and supportive, which is a great thing when you're in a new city. On Monday night, I joined Mrs. L and the girls for Grandpa L's birthday celebration, and had a chance to meet the extended family, which was awesome. Cannot stress enough how much they've made me feel at home. I am so blessed and thankful for them.

Tuesday: Let's just say that after Tuesday, my brain was fried. I spent the reading a 10 chapters of a beginner's guide to SEO. For non-techies (and I put myself in that category, thought I have a feeling this job is going to change that), that's Search Engine Optimization - fancy stuff. After a quick lunch, I had my first introduction to Google Analytics, which is an awesome tool that I'd recommend for almost anyone with a website. I was pretty impressed, and honestly a little overwhelmed at the mere capability of the Internet... I spent the afternoon inputting data from the Analytics feed to Excel documents (thank goodness for Tom George and Research Methods, which I would've been lost without). Needless to say, it was quite a day of learning, and I was exhausted. So, the perfect thing to go home and do was watch four episodes of Parks and Rec with Mrs. L. I got her hooked on Sunday night, and
it's been a great way to wind down after work. She's hoping to get through the series this summer, which will inevitably mean that I will watch the entire series twice in the course of 4 months. I have no shame.

Wednesday: The morning was another rough one. I watched a 2 hour and 15 minute lecture on SalesForce which my boss called, and I quote, "like pulling teeth." He was right. And that's all I really have to say about that.

Wednesday afternoon was pretty slow, and every hour or so all the interns in our shared office would look around and ask if the day had ended yet. Hump day is truly a real thing. But I did start getting acquainted with ExactTarget, the email marketing system our company uses, which was good preparation for Thursday. I spent Wednesday night working on a non-USAF related top-secret project. Once again, that's really all I have to say about that.

 

Thursday: I spent yesterday getting some real use out of my new HTML "skills," though I use that word loosely because I very apparently still have a lot to learn. I got a chance to create some of my first email templates, and it was more than frustrating. I tip my hat to anybody who is HTML-fluent, because it's not an easy thing to learn. I will say this though - after spending 4 hours to try and finish one template, the feeling of accomplishment when it was complete was pretty damn good. I spent some more time chatting some interns like Rachel, who is the super nice new video intern in our office. She's worked for ESPN - so cool. I finished two email templates by the day's end and felt pretty accomplished. I was exhausted by the time I got home, but had a nice and long overdue chat with Joe before bed. It's been a great week of learning at work, but I am thrilled for a relaxing weekend. Thanks for reading!

#IndyAdventures
-SBL