Friday February 19, Almost Halfway Through The Games

Today (Friday) I have my second class day of the week. Class days as I have previously mentioned are nice because it allows me to be able to sleep in. They are made up of two parts, a one to two hour class session and a tour of one of the Olympic venues in Whistler. After having the opportunity to go to Cypress Mountain the other night and see Shaun White in the snowboard halfpipe there is not a lot left I am really interested in seeing at the Winter Olympics. Yesterday was another long day at work with a 430 am start but the day itself went very smooth and we hardly had any helpdesk issues. It was nice to be able to put into action all the ideas and concepts Hughie had left us with without him there breathing down everyone's neck. For the venue tour today as a part of the class day is a trip to Whistler Creekside where I work. It was difficult to get out of bed this morning but not as hard as it was to get up at 315 am the day before. The tour did not consist of much because there is not a lot to see at Creekside past the small village, the view and the finish line for the alpine events. The tour took place at 9am and since the event was not going on until eleven, it was a fairly short tour. I did not mind this because it gave me the opportunity to go and workout before I headed back to camp to grab lunch. For the class part today we were originally told that the guest speaker, Pat Leahy, one of the partners of Incognitus, would not be available to talk because he was going to be in Vancouver for the day. It turned out that he was not leaving until 2pm so those of us that were around camp were able to hear his presentation from him, instead of from Scott. Incognitus is a consulting company that does many different things inside the entertainment and sports world. Pat's presentation today was about how to approach an interview. It offered more than just the obvious tips and gave a list of reasons why a person may not receive a call after being interviewed. I found Pat's presentation to be very interesting and it made me consider a few things I have never thought of. One of the keys he mentioned was to always ask at least one question, preferably two, after any interview. This was to show interest in the position and show that the person being interviewed was paying attention. He made the point that the interviewer most of the time has left something out because s/he is busy and stressed. Pat also stressed that it is important to know as much as possible about the company and the position in which you are interviewing for. He talked about Salary and said a good response to a question about pay would be "I trust that a company such as this would pay something competitive and fair for the amount of work required for the position." If the company was to want a specific number, research prior to the interview about similar position salaries is very important. Overall Pat gave a very informative and well-organized presentation that I felt like I could take something away from. He gave all of us his business card and explained a little bit about what he does with Incognitus and how he got to where he is. I found his job intriguing because even though I would not mind to travel some in the industry I would also be interested in a position or part of the industry that had some stability in its location. Pat was an American and not originally part of Clean Event, different from most of the other people that have had the chance to talk with the interns. After class I took a short nap and decided I would go out into town for awhile for the first time in over a week. The early starts have really taken a lot of my energy but it would be nice to get out of the camp and be able to have a little fun away from work. The weekend will consist of two long days but also the much anticipated Canada-United States ice hockey game. There is a feeling around Whistler that many Canadians have been looking past many of the other events and ahead to the ice hockey games. Should be interesting.