What a week it’s been. I am fully immersed into career life now, making me super busy.  I’ve attended two sessions of my class and am still just as enthusiastic about it as I was last week. The Washington Center sure gives us a lot to do, but busy is good; the weeks fly by. What I’ve noticed about Washington D.C. is that it feels lot like Boston to me, with the Metro/T, size of the city, and the culture. The difference is that Washington is filled with people you do want to meet, whereas Boston seems to be filled with people you don’t.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Boston and I love the people, but the kind of networking you can do in Washington is better than anywhere else because it is such a social city with so many people in extremely prestigious positions.

Office Laughs

Last week, we had an all-staff meeting at work. It was a great chance for everyone in the company to meet the new employees and share the projects that the different departments are working on. It was in our big conference room and was catered by Qdoba. You can’t really beat that. I sat down at the table and waited for the meeting to start. When it eventually did, our executive director spoke at the head of the table and asked the interns to introduce themselves and tell an embarrassing story. I thought and thought about what embarrassing story to tell… because I have so many. I had to find the line between what is appropriate for work, what people would think is funny, and what is too embarrassing to share. Finally I settled on a story from back when I was 14.

I ran out of gasoline on my boat in one tank (the boat has two) and my second tank didn’t fit into the gas nozzle. I called my father and asked what to do and he said “figure it out.”  I did just that. I decided it would be a good idea to dump the entire second tank into my bilge and “Mr. Thirsty” (pump) it back into the first tank. I made it into the harbor safely, but my engine didn’t. It was now full of seaweed, sand, and seawater.  This story was a big hit and landed just right.

I’ve done some fantastic networking this past week, seen some impressive speakers, and made connections that will hopefully be an outstanding influence through the rest of my career. My goal while I’m down here is to collect 50 business cards from various people I meet.  So far, I believe I’m at 17.  I’ve also decided I’d like to participate in 3-5 informational interviews which would be a great way to network. These will be challenging goals but they are important and I feel very strongly about wanting to complete them.

Directional Concerns

This past weekend my roommate wasn’t feeling very well, and found a health clinic on what we thought was 226 L St. North WEST. If you haven’t been to Washington D.C. before, the streets can be really confusing because of the Cardinal directions. Anyway, it seemed like a 25-minute walk and he wasn’t up for that, so we decided to call a cab.  We get in the taxi and drive to 226 L St. North WEST, looking for this health clinic. We couldn’t find it. I decided to look up the directions on my phone and it brought us to 226 L St. North EAST… which is literally 5 buildings away from our address at TWC's Residential and Academic Facility. We drove back and couldn’t believe it. From this experience we learned a valuable lesson. Double check where you’re trying to go before you call a taxi.