The Irish Times: Internship Week 1

On Monday, I woke up very early, showered, and met the other students who were working at the Bank of Ireland to travel there together. We arrived a half hour early, so we waited by the river. Then it started to rain. When we walked in, we got our new security IDs that would open the doors throughout the building. Ariana and I headed up to the second floor where Padraig, our immediate supervisor gave each of us a binder with some information about the company and the department. We read through the binder, and then we were each put in a different department. I was put in the High Exposure Team that work with people who have mortgages in arrears of more than 750,000 euros or own multiple properties. Because it was the first day, I didn’t have a password set up with the computer yet, so they gave me a complaint file read over. After that, they gave me a binder of a case to read over. It was a pretty big binder, so it took me until after lunch to read through it. I went to lunch at 12:45pm with Ariana and had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, and apple juice for lunch. The food was really good, and we had an hour lunch break. After lunch, I continued reading through the file, and they let me leave at 4:30pm. The bus stop was further away, and I got back at around 5:30pm. Then I cooked a lot of food, ate dinner, showered, and went to bed early because I was tired.

On Tuesday, I woke up around 6:45am and got to work around 8:30am with Ariana and Lisa, so we could have breakfast there. For breakfast, I had a poached egg, a piece of bacon, a piece of sausage, a hash brown, and a bottle of water. Then we headed upstairs, and I got access to the computer today but no internet yet. I set up my new exchange email and read through some information. Then they asked me to make a copy of the huge binder I read through yesterday, so I had to take out all of the staples and copy about 1,000 pages. After I finished that, I went to lunch with Ariana and had chicken with gravy, potatoes, peas, cauliflower, and a bottle of water for lunch. When I got back from lunch, most people in the office were on their own lunch break, so it was very quiet compared to the mornings here. For the afternoon, I observed Aidan who was working through some files of people with low exposure mortgages in arrears who had proposals for the bank as to how they would pay the bank back. Again, they let me leave at 4:30pm. I got back around 5:40pm, and then did my laundry for the first time here. The numbers were a bit confusing on the washer, but I figured it out. Then I ate dinner, showered, relaxed, and went to bed early again.

On Wednesday, I woke up at 6:45am and got to work early again for breakfast. I had a croissant with ham and cheese inside, a piece of bacon, a piece of sausage, a hash brown, berry yogurt, and water for breakfast. My morning consisted of reading through another two huge files in red binders and copying them. I had lunch at 12:45pm with the other interns and had pasta with Bolognese sauce. After lunch, I made a quick copy of a financial statement for the another team that work in the department. Then I read through the operational procedures manual. ‘The High Exposure Team (‘HET’) sits within the Arrears Support Unit, Mortgage Arrears Resolution Strategy Division (MARS) of Bank of Ireland (BOI)’. There were a lot of acronyms. I am still working on getting access to the CACS (Computer Assisted Collections System) and AS400 system they use here. I left work at 4:30pm and went shopping at the Temple Bar gift shop. I got a few things and then went to Tesco and bought some food. I got on a bus around 5:40pm and got back to my apartment around 6:30pm. Then I decided to go to the gym and run on a treadmill, and while I was there, the Ireland vs. Italy soccer game started at 8pm. I watched the first half of the game while walking on the treadmill, but nothing happened. In the end, Ireland beat Italy 1-0. Afterwards, I went back to my apartment, ate some food, showered, and went to bed.

On Thursday, I woke up at 6:45am and got to work early for breakfast. I had a croissant with ham and cheese inside, a piece of bacon, a piece of sausage, a hash brown, berry yogurt, and water for breakfast again. My morning started off with a fire drill at 9:30am. Then I called IT to gain access to AS400 and waited for them to email me. I also used the CACS system to copy notes onto a word file for my co-worker and send them to her. I familiarized myself with the Excel dataset of over 8,000 accounts. Then I was given my first real assignment; I had to go through a file cabinet and match up the files with files in the dataset by using the CACS system to look up the account information. I got through about 75% of the files by 4:30pm when I left for the week. For lunch, I had a pastry with chicken and mushroom gravy sauce with carrots and mashed potatoes. They have at least one form of potato offered everyday for lunch. After work, I got on the bus at 4:50pm and was back by 5:40pm. I went to the gym at 6:00pm to run on the treadmill. Then I showered and three of my friends came over so we could book our tickets for the Paddywagon bus tour to Giant's Causeway and Belfast. Here's the link for the itinerary of my day: http://www.paddywagontours.com/GIANTS-CAUSEWAY-Day-Tour-From-DUBLIN. The tickets weren't too expensive considering the fact that we are going to so many places, and they include the admission to the Giant's Causeway. After we booked the tickets, I ate dinner, relaxed, and went to bed early because I was exhausted from waking up early, going to work, and the gym.

While this first week of my internship may have been a bit underwhelming, I’m eager to see how the next five weeks goes and what I’ll be doing. I feel that I did more each day this week as I got to know the department and the systems. I'm also very glad I get free breakfast and lunch at work and that the food is great!