Katie Gieszler '10: Security Coverage and Corporate Culture Individual Project

Corporate Culture.

Posted by Katie Gieszler on 23 Oct 2009 at 11:51 PM

This block ended quite differently than it had started. Originally, I was working in the accounting department at Security Coverage, and then I ended up doing an individual project about corporate culture. My paper about corporate culture included case studies about Google, HP, Enron, and Security Coverage. Each specific company was used to describe a specific type of corporate culture and how its practices have affected their company and employees.

Writing that paper really made me think about the type of employer that I’d like to work for some day. Some of the articles that I read were able to give me clues that I can pick up on while at a work place that will tell me what type of corporate culture I may be entering. I feel that with this project I was able to salvage this block and really put my mind to something that will affect my future. Now, I know what environment I’d like to work in, and what environment I would not want to work in. I believe that knowledge will really help me when trying to choose a job within the coming months.

Changing the Plan.

Posted by Katie Gieszler on 15 Oct 2009 at 4:30 PM

I’m now on campus doing a project with Professor A'amer Farooqi to finish up the requirements for this internship.

For the rest of the block, I’ll be writing a literature review about corporate culture and organizational management. I’ll look at the basics of these ideas, as well as how they can affect employees in the work place. I’ll be researching specific companies that are known for having a great corporate culture, as well as a few companies that need some improvement. I will do an overview about what research has been done surrounding the idea of corporate culture and the general results that have arisen. The first step in this process is finding the literature that I’ll be reviewing. Today, I found articles ranging in databases from the Washington Post and The Economist, to studies done by professors at MIT and University of Michigan. I have quite a large amount of reading to do and will meet with Professor Farooqi tomorrow afternoon to discuss my findings. 

11 Days Down, 7 To Go.

Posted by Katie Gieszler on 12 Oct 2009 at 2:32 PM

After being ill for a day and a half last week, I’m back in the office. This week I’m starting things off with continuing my work on the spreadsheet. Currently, I’ve weeded out the customers that we will be writing off, and those that we will be contacting. Those that we will be contacting have reported an active license key from our software on their computer and/or our records show that they have an active billing cycle. Currently, I’m finding their contact information and inputting this into the spreadsheet. That will be variable #28. Once I have finished gathering all of that information, I will be contacting these customers to see if they’d like to discontinue the use of our software or if they’d like to update their billing information to get back on track.

Upon first glance I was very skeptical about doing bill collecting. I don’t like the idea of pressuring people or asking them for money, so I wasn’t sure how to go about this. However, after talking with my boss, he assured me that the script I’ll be using won’t allow me to take any of the blame for the glitches that our accounting software has made. Some of these calls will result in credit card information simply being updated and I’m sure some of them will end up with angry customers with overdue balances that we will have to write off. It is definitely going to be a challenge, but I have no doubt that it’ll improve my patience and communication skills. I really hope some of these customers will try to catch up on their bills and not leave the company hanging. However, with the economy being in a downturn, it’s hard to say which bills people can afford to pay each month. Wish me luck!

Just Plain Exhausted.

Posted by Katie Gieszler on 07 Oct 2009 at 1:26 PM

I now understand why my mom went to bed at 9 o’clock when she worked full time– It’s exhausting! I feel like having an internship during school is spreading me much thinner than I ever imagined, and I am just plain exhausted.

This week has been a long one. Because no one has done this project before, I feel like I’m constantly coming up with faults in our system, or errors that somehow I had missed. This has been the most challenging part of this job. Because there are 27 variables in the spreadsheet that I have created, it is very easy to mis-code one of them and throw off the entire system. Let me repeat, this week has been a long one.

However, there is a dim light at the end of the tunnel. Today, I finished the second round of coding for the account information. Currently, I have determined what actions need to be taken on each account. It is labeled in the “write off?” section of my spreadsheet. There are 17 different codings that each of the accounts may have that fit into four different categories. Initially, the amount of money that these accounts were going to cost if solely written off was well over $18,000. Currently, the accounts that are a “yes” in the write off column only total $3,100. It’s nice to be able to see a little bit of evidence that this huge spreadsheet’s outcome may have an impact. I’m hoping this project will save SCI a lot of money and a lot of time in the future.