6:00am alarm buzzes in my ear. I crack one eye open to see nothing but a light nightglow from the window. The sun hasn’t even risen yet and I am up- SNOOZE.

Fast forward 3 or 4 snoozes and I am racing against  the clock to get ready for the Clybourn Metra outbound train at 7:21 to Mt. Prospect. The uber drops me off at the train and I board, for what seems like, my second home- the train. Now, I enjoy this part of the morning, for I am not alone on this reverse commute. Just to give a little background, I work at Bosch Power Tool Corporation, specifically the headquarters in North America, which ultimately has 500+ employees in 7 different business units. So, on this reverse commute to Mt. Prospect, I see my fellow 17 brave commuters. A morning chitchat on the train is a must and 8 stops later, we all get off the train to then board the Bosch Commuter Bus with Carlos. Now, I only get to spend approximately 16 minutes with Carlos a day (train to Bosch, and round trip back to train after the workday is over) but he always puts a smile on my face. “Gooooooooood Morning fellow Bosch employees” brightens my day in the morning and “Areeeeeee we ready to go home everyone?” in the afternoon makes me feel taken care of. 8 minutes later, we arrive  to Bosch’s front doors, we walk down a 400 ft. hallway, I say farewell to my fellow commuters until our 4:21 bus back to the train, I go up one flight of stairs, I round the corner, say “Good Morning” to the Measuring Tools (MT) team and I make it to my cubicle by 8:00am. But my cubicle doesn’t really look like a cubicle- more like mix between a file/ storage cabinet.  But first, coffee. (Valid side note: I am beyond blessed to be one of the only business units (Measuring Tools) to have our own coffee set up so we can always have it at hand.) 2 creams, and 3 sugars later, I am back at my so-called “desk.”

Half of my desk is full of shipments and orders, and the other half is buried under paper work. First, I open up my computer, login to Outlook and check my meetings and such for the day. As I am a part time intern now (I was full time during the summer) I spend most of my time following through with the projects I have already started and keeping all promotions organized. I have worked on two big projects during the summer, one that stacks up the promotion side of my desk, which was Sell to Sail. The other was A+ pages for Amazon which was buried with all the paperwork on the other half of my desk.  I usually liked to make sure all of my shipments were out on time so I start with the Sell to Sail project every morning. The Sell to Sale project is an internal 1-year (started in January 2015) project for MT where whoever in the field sells the most, will win a free cruise in April 2016. This project is split between 3 business units (Accessories, MT, and Brand) so many meetings are set up through out the week to make sure all loose ends are met. I have personally created the “messages in a bottle” (reminders) about the contest. In addition, within those bottles where little “map messages” that I created with brand to give the guys in the field a little boost of confidence. (As the project continues to the end of internship (December), I am excited to see how it all falls into place.)

Roughly 4 hours of meetings, shipments, and mailroom visits, lunch finally arrives. Now, at Bosch, at exactly12:00pm the building is dinning in the cafeteria or en route to their lunch destination.  I usually grab a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria for two reasons. One is because Bosch subsidizes their cost of food for a cheaper more convenient (in the building) bite to eat. The second is because I don’t have a car. (But I mainly eat there because of the first point.)

The clock strikes 1:00pm and everyone is back in their cubicles grinding away at their work. By now, I am transitioning on to the other side of my desk, which is the current A+ page project. This is another project I started as a summer intern and am continuing to use and update until the end of internship. Bosch’s A+ pages are located on Amazon and they are meant to be a little profile of the products we sell. I was trained in how to update these pages but they are meant to be user friendly and easy place to understand how the products work, what the products kit includes and compare other products Bosch has. (A simplified version of) the process goes like this:

1. Locate product manager’s specifications on MDP (Media Data Pool)
2. Find pictures/ description of product
3. Download information on computer
4. Login/ copy and paste all info on to Amazon
5. Get approved by Amazon

Then, repeat for EVERY Bosch product on Amazon, so one can see how this can be a lengthy project. There are two aspects that I really enjoy about this project. The first reason is that I get access all data on products, which gives ample opportunities to really understand the products at hand. The second reason is, and possibly my absolute favorite part, that my work is on Amazon!

Fast forward roughly 3 hours of research, Amazon, and downloads and 4:00pm rolls around. Everyday, before I head out, my manager and I have a quick wrap up chat for the day. Wrap up with manager? Check.  Now, for the commute back to Chicago.

Per usual, Carlos greets the 18 of us with his “Areeeeeee we ready to go home everyone?” We all grin happily, give a little sigh of exhaustion as he starts up the engine for us to make the 4:21 train to Chicago.