Today was my first day at Bentley Systems as an intern. When I got there the very courteous Bushra showed my my desk. The desk was nice with a reasonable machine. I got my first pleasant surprise when i started the machine, that was to see my name as the user name. So when they say “We were expecting you” they really mean it. At least I didn’t expect such a prepared welcome for an intern 
The MIS staff was really nice, fixed the keyboard and mouse problem in no time (I don’t remember the very nice MIS persons name :$). So my new workstation was all set and ready to go in no time. All systems used the same login which is nice (that is standard for all large organizations though).
I was a little confused for the first few hours because I didnt know what project I would be a part of and the very courteous and friendly collogues came and asked me about my team and I was a little lost and not to mention a little embarrassed. My team lead was not in by that time and I spent the next hour or so reading old emails in my new company mail box and familiarizing myself with what is what (limited to the premises of my machine 
).
In a little while Umair Hasan, my team lead showed up. He told me a little about the project and I felt much better when he said he knows as little about the project as I did. Though of course he was being humble. Umair told me a little more about who is who and what is what. He gave me a technical starting point and I was off.
After that I had a very nice chat with two of my seniors from FAST who already work at Bentley Systems, Nazia Tahir and Zaki Shaheen. Half an hour later I was feeling as confident as lion in its lair. From the starting point Umair had given me, I made serious progress pretty quickly. To my luck some of the articles I was reading just last night proved to be very useful. We were working on something new to the team, I saw this as my chance to shine as my key strength is learning fast or should I say FAST . However, the team lead was not as impressed as I thought he might have been
As usual I was late for lunch, though it was just 9 minutes. I discovered that the break room was buzzing with people. However, the leave as quickly as they come (I need to increase my pace of eating ). The lunch was great though.
Later in the day I was called for the first Scrum meeting that too a conference call. I was taken by surprise a little because I thought the call from Umair was regarding a briefing. The meeting was nice. Afterwards, Umair gave me a briefing regarding the project and the company and also perhaps my first assignment (I am not sure because it was too easy ). I sorted it out in about an hour and afterwards I decided to call it a day.
All in all it was a great day thanks to help from my Umair, my team lead; Zaki and Nazia. The learnig outcome of the day was great. If I can keep it up for a few more months, this internship can work wonders for me. Though I hope to be more impressive in my performance for the days to come.
Hmm. Pretty interesting. As far as the lunch is concerned, keep your pace :p No hurries. You can come around 1245 and eat till 2 (or more). What’s with getting people impressed though =)? Trust me, they are impressed that’s why they kept you. And otherwise, with-in the organization, it takes a lot to leave a lasting impression. (days, weeks, months – basically opertunities). What impresses them is how well you fit in the process and provide value to it. The products are HUGE and smallterm big oppertunities are rare. So you have to have a long term strategy to impress people here. And wait till you get to know more and more people. Some real genious people around here trust me.
Impressed, was more my version of saying “Surprising them with skill”