Tara and me working in the meeting room!
FSA welcomes MSU!!
Me, the infamous Bob, and Tara- look at all those awards!Today was the day that Paul has been gearing us up for over the past 4 weeks--the FSA meeting. Food Services of America (FSA) is Montana State University's prime vendor, which means that a large percentage of our items are purchased through FSA. All of the projects that Tara and I have been working on up to this point have been preparing us for what we were going to talk about at this meeting. Our preperation became intensive yesterday. We were adjusting spreadsheets, making copies, calling people to get various pieces of information, and going over our meeting agenda.
This morning started out with Paul picking Tara and me up outside of our dorm at 6:15 AM!! We went to Bagel Works (which opened at 6:30 AM) for breakfast. Me, being the clutz that I am, dropped my bagel onto the floor after only having one bite--cream cheese side down! So, my day started out a little rocky (good thing I didn't spill my coffee). Next, we get back into the car and head for Billings. Two hours later, we are in Billings and slightly early for our meeting....so we go to Cabella's. This is basically a Dick's Sporting Goods store on steroids. There was a large mountain scene set up on the back wall with a bunch of stuffed wild animals strategically placed all around. There was also a waterfall in this scene that dumped water into an aquarium of live fish--pretty impressive if you ask me. There was also a huge gun library and an archery range where you could test out the bows and arrows.
Anyway, we finally make it to FSA for our meeting. After we met all of the people we had been emailing for 4 weeks, Bob (our FSA guy) gave his yearly report. It was full of facts and figures about the MSU/FSA relationship during the 2008-2009 year. After he was finished speaking, Paul, Tara, and I began our portion of the meeting. Everything went really smoothly--it wasn't as difficult as I had made it out to be. About 2 hours later, the meeting was over and we were heading down to the warehouse for a tour. Luckily, I had already taken a tour of a distribution warehouse in Virginia (shoutout Mrs. Cox foodservice and meal management!) so I was able to ask a lot of good questions and compare the two operations. After the tour, the whole gang went out to lunch. This was probably the best part of the day because we got to have one on one time with 2 employees that are in their 20s, Bob, Mike (the President of the Billings FSA branch), and Warren (a sales manager at FSA). It is these types of experiences that are making this internship invaluable. Tara and I are getting the chance to ask the source of hiring in our field what they look for in young candidates, what types of interview questions they like to ask, and we get to ask them questions about how they got to be in the positions that they are in today.
Once lunch was over, we got back on the road and headed home. We stopped in Livingston to get a milkshake at Mark's In and Out and visited with Rachael (Paul's former intern) for a bit. Paul also drove us by the rodeo/fairgrounds in Livingston because MY BROTHER IS COMING THIS WEEKEND AND WE ARE GOING TO THE RODEO. I'm excited.
~~~~~
This morning started out with Paul picking Tara and me up outside of our dorm at 6:15 AM!! We went to Bagel Works (which opened at 6:30 AM) for breakfast. Me, being the clutz that I am, dropped my bagel onto the floor after only having one bite--cream cheese side down! So, my day started out a little rocky (good thing I didn't spill my coffee). Next, we get back into the car and head for Billings. Two hours later, we are in Billings and slightly early for our meeting....so we go to Cabella's. This is basically a Dick's Sporting Goods store on steroids. There was a large mountain scene set up on the back wall with a bunch of stuffed wild animals strategically placed all around. There was also a waterfall in this scene that dumped water into an aquarium of live fish--pretty impressive if you ask me. There was also a huge gun library and an archery range where you could test out the bows and arrows.
Anyway, we finally make it to FSA for our meeting. After we met all of the people we had been emailing for 4 weeks, Bob (our FSA guy) gave his yearly report. It was full of facts and figures about the MSU/FSA relationship during the 2008-2009 year. After he was finished speaking, Paul, Tara, and I began our portion of the meeting. Everything went really smoothly--it wasn't as difficult as I had made it out to be. About 2 hours later, the meeting was over and we were heading down to the warehouse for a tour. Luckily, I had already taken a tour of a distribution warehouse in Virginia (shoutout Mrs. Cox foodservice and meal management!) so I was able to ask a lot of good questions and compare the two operations. After the tour, the whole gang went out to lunch. This was probably the best part of the day because we got to have one on one time with 2 employees that are in their 20s, Bob, Mike (the President of the Billings FSA branch), and Warren (a sales manager at FSA). It is these types of experiences that are making this internship invaluable. Tara and I are getting the chance to ask the source of hiring in our field what they look for in young candidates, what types of interview questions they like to ask, and we get to ask them questions about how they got to be in the positions that they are in today.
Once lunch was over, we got back on the road and headed home. We stopped in Livingston to get a milkshake at Mark's In and Out and visited with Rachael (Paul's former intern) for a bit. Paul also drove us by the rodeo/fairgrounds in Livingston because MY BROTHER IS COMING THIS WEEKEND AND WE ARE GOING TO THE RODEO. I'm excited.
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ya'll have In and Out there? wooo!
ReplyDeleteit's not THE in and out...but it's still good. we can go there before the rodeo!!! yehaw!
ReplyDelete