First week...

My first week in camp just ended, but it feels like I've been here for MONTHS.

I spent this week working, exploring the town, and just getting to know everyone. I'm stationed in the camp office, helping with transport and administration work. It was a little bit of a bummer when I first found out I was assigned here, as I wanted to be out on a venue, but it's actually been really neat. Being in the office means always knowing what's going on (like the fact that the camp is getting satellite TV! Yay!) The amount of work it takes to run this place is mind-blowing...from making sure people have beds to sleep in to ensuring they get paid on time to trying to get everyone down to the village for a break. This week, I've been doing a little bit of all of that, and more. My biggest task of work this week was cutting out and laminating over 300 passes for the camp members...not so glamorous but at least I'm in Whistler...no complaints here :)

Cleanevent has a computer system called Citrix, which was developed especially for the company and is vital for keeping things running smoothly. It handles budgeting and planning timelines for major projects, scheduling employees, recording timesheets, maintaining employee information, recording all helpdesk calls...I felt useless my first two days in the office because Citrix isn't working properly on my Mac, but we finally got an extra computer here. I'm still navigating through the system but it is amazing that it is used for every single step of a project...from the bidding to the evaluations following the project's conclusion.

Once things get a little busier, I'll be primarily organizing schedules to utilize four 15-person vans to get 200 people to and from work and the Village. It's overwhelming to think about the difficulties this task will bring, but it will be an incredible learning experience from an operational standpoint. Peter Cooper (aka Coops) is the camp manager and will be supervising me through this process. Luckily he is great at what he does. Also, starting next week, we'll be spending one day each week with Hughie, the precinct director. He supervises several of the Whistler Olympic Venues and knows EVERYONE.

When we haven't been working this week, we've been down in Whistler Village. It's an incredibly cute ski town with fun shopping, restaurants, and nightlife. Although it is on the expensive side, it's a great escape from the trailer. When we go out at night, it seems like the entire camp is there. Everyone here is about networking...from the managers to the cleaners themselves. A good job here means a chance to continue on at the next big event, so getting to know everyone is key. It's also been exciting just to see the variety of people here...they're from all over the world! The company is headquartered in Australia, so most of the management team is from there. There are also people from Chile, France, Germany, China, Korea, Thailand, Japan...it's the most random group I've ever seen, but for the most part, everyone gets along.

The nine other students from USC are a ton of fun...at points, we get irritated with each other in our VERY small living quarters, but we all really enjoy hanging out. It's been fun getting to know other Gamecock students that I probably would have never met in Columbia.

That's all for now! We have Saturday and Sunday off so hopefully I'll have some fun stories next time.