CEO Intern Cast Diary

Hi America I am back, sorry I left you for so long. As is always the case when we speak I have mountains share so sit, read, envision, and engage this blog for time is its spine and immortality is its reward. This past week has served to be another awakening for me, you may ask how many times will I wake? To that question, my response is simple; I will stop when the sun has finally set.

Lets move on to the details of this past week now. This week the five interns, Mr. Paulin and our producer Prescott started the city tours (Parker came too). St Louis was up first and in this city, we did two sales presentations one to a billion dollar military contractor known as DRS and the other to “a plant manager” of Omega steel. On a side note, I put plant manager in quotes because that is the repose I was given when I asked if making a trip to omega steel would be worth our time and gas. As you can imagine getting the door to DRS was no easy task, but thanks to some persistence as well as a few inside connections, we made it to a fancy conference room. Everyone needed to be an American citizen, and have a passport to get into the building, and that is one of the many reasons why Prescott’s camera was not allowed to enter the building. We asked the camera if it had a passport and got no response so we left it in the car with the king of the castle. Sorry we didn’t get the sales pitch on camera America, the presentation was textbook, take my word for it.

In the meeting with us from DRS there was a CTO, metallurgist, several other engineers, and a logician, oh my a logician (as he shakes his head and smiles). This sales pitch is exactly what school is supposed to be preparing me for but ironically, this experience can’t be taught in a class room America there is no simulating reality there is just reality so after graduation, at whatever level that may be remember one thing, school has started (another side note). Four interns presented a power point we created to kick things off.  From slide two our audiences was engaged and asking questions about information on the slides so, we had to pull out our terminator Mr. Paulin earlier than expected. He shot there question out of the sky as if he was shooting trap or skeet, PULL! After the slides were done, the questions continued and Mr. Paulin just kept loading shells.

When the meeting was finished, we made a stop toured Wachovia’s headquarters and continued to our 3’oclock with Omega. I had my reservations about omega but either way I look at it my resulting response is the same. It was an experience for the ages. Omega was like going into a large garage. There was no fancy table or leather chairs like DRS just a plant manager and an assistant in an office. We stood huddled facing the manager while Mr. Paulin politely engaged the man in conversation then bid him farewell. In one day we experienced both sides of the sales experience, one side exceeded expectations and the other was reality check.

Sales was not the only thing we learned about on the trip though, we also learned the importance of being prepared, polite, punctual, organized, aware, intuitive, energetic, dedicated and the list goes on America. The amount I learned in one day as been the theme of this whole trip and that is what  brings me to my current predicament, a question I have been struggling with since week two. The question is how do I say thank you to the Paulin’s for a summer like no other, one that has been filled with life lessons that currency can’t pay for, that a thank you letter alone cannot service. Let me put it this way I have taken a loan from the Paulin bank. My loan does not have an interest rate because the Paulin’s are not concerned with a rate of return but instead with the rate at which I learn. I call it a loan because I plan to repay. I know that I am deeply in debt and since time in this case is inflation, I will never be able to fully repay my debt. The answer then to the question posed above is time and service. The only way for me to make payments on my loan is to use my time and my hands to foster and maintain the relationship that has been established in my time here.

America you stay thank you for the intangible by giving of yourself and never leaving the thoughts of the ones you are indebted to.  Irie I, One Love. Charlie H.         

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Our producer deliberately kept us in the dark about how the phone system worked.  As a result, we had all kinds of funny solutions to get things done.  For instance, in lieu of hanging up a call on speakerphone properly, I figured out that hanging the receiver up five times in rapid succession would do the trick.  For the first two weeks this was the only way to ensure that we weren’t still on speaker with someone.

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Hello ladies and gents I know it has been a while since my last blog but I haven’t forgot about you. I have just been thinking so much that my fingers have been paralyzed. Since we last spoke I have been through a weekend and two days of work. On the weekend I went out for my first ever game of golf. It goes without saying that I am not tiger, even though I promised nick that I would go three under par my first time out. I did not go three under par and that’s all I will say about the score card. In addition to the cheers from Mr. Paulin and nick I felt that I took to the game fairly well, I need to work on my drive, keeping my head down, my short game and well in a nut shell I need to practice. The day after golf Mr. Paulin took the whole team to the whole team to six flags. The rides were ok, they are no longer my favorite part of the theme park thanks to age. Not saying I am old though just saying that having my head smashed on rubber gets old fast, now I prefer to play the carnival style games, the ones where someone takes your money and you either shoot water or throw rings to try and win something worth less than what you paid. There is some level of irony present now that I have realized roller coasters don’t excite me as much as they used to. The irony stems from the fact that I was ecstatic when I found out that my empress has never been to six flags in her twenty odd years on this earth; knowing that I offered to take her to six flags for the first time once I returned home. Now that I know she has never been to six flags and I don’t like rides as much, it will be funny to see the expression on my face when we are standing in line.

The week started with six flags and continued with my special delivery also known as insight. The gift of insight was sent by the one and only management guru Mr. Paulin. The gift was given as solution to a subtle conflict that I was having with the group dynamic. Earlier this week I spoke with Mr. Paulin and explained my disdain with where the group interactions and leadership are heading. He helped me understand that some of my concerns stem from an individual bias. When I heard this the first thing that came to mind was “DUH, why didn’t I think of that,” but of course I didn’t think that because, well who points the finger at themselves first. I know how important personal development is, since mom has stressed it to me all my life. My advice America is simple, go out and buy a pair of mirror tint aviators and hold them up to your face. Don’t put the shades on, instead turn them around and tell me what you see. Irie I, One Love. Charlie H.

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Yesterday after working in the office I had a feeling that I could not explain but after CrossFit this morning I understand what I was feeling. CrossFit this morning was a seventeen minute workout designed to leave you on the floor. I completed the workout and stood just fine waiting for the next round, which obviously means that I didn’t push hard enough. I view this as a problem but I also see how this habit of mine works in my favor at times because on one end of the coin I have not seen my full potential and at the other end I do need energy to be able to be productive at work. I have experiences like this on a regular basis. Overall I feel that I am selling myself short but at the same time I may just be throwing all of my similar experiences into one pot and analyzing them as a whole, which means that I may not be considering factors unique to a given experience.

The conclusion that I have come to, which is not really a conclusion, is that I need to push myself, in the office, in the gym, everywhere. I was used to getting pushed by tough coaches and mentors in the past and now it’s all self reliance and motivation. This struggle is one that also applies to my responsibilities as CEO because there is no coach standing behind me screaming PUSH, instead all I have to hold to is my internal drive and individual passion for conquering challenges as I engage them. America, aim to leave it all out on the floor. Irie I, One Love. Charlie H.

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Well, I'm still at the office working to get everything prepped for tomorrow.  Everyone was a bit tired today from staying up until 2am and playing RockBand, and I certainly felt their pain after waking up at 5:30am for our CrossFit workout in Decatur at 6am.  We've had a very productive week on the production side and we continue to get help from entrepreneurs and CEOs around the nation.  Xerox continues to be most helpful (the new Solid Ink Phaser printers they sent are very cool) and I'm anxious to try and get Mike Porcaro at Intuit to engage our team.  Gary Swart, the CEO of ODesk, spoke briefly yesterday with the CEO Interns about working together to solve some of the IT problems here at 300 Below.  They are considering a switch to Linux for more security and Aladdin Systems has also been helpful in contemplating a new cryogenic processor redesign that will integrate HASP technology to prevent unauthorized copies of the new user interface.  I also had a productive phone call with one of the VPs at TidalTV.com about creating a new CEO Intern channel or integrating our programming with a network like MEN7.  We're currently in discussion to get MEN7 to film 300 Below separately in July for their MEN7 show's tech segment, which is geared toward an affluent male audience.  Hmm, what else?  Aside from contacting racing teams to schedule more NASCAR interview opportunities for Gabe (after he interviewed Kenny Wallace and Jason Leffler), we're also putting a new Amazon ordering system in place for the company so they can outsource inventory to Amazon.  I've been in touch with the AWS evangelist at Amazon, and we're anxious to see how that might play a role in our integration, too.  After analyzing printer logs for Xerox, I started to see some interesting correlations between 300 Below's productive employees and those that are not so productive.  I left the papers on the conference room table so we'll see what conclusions the Group CEO draws tomorrow morning, if they're more awake that is.  :)  As far as my wish list at the office goes, I wish we could set up a recycling program here like Babson had that would prevent so much paper from going to waste.  Is it good to create a sustainable initiative for this company?  I hope the interns confront this issue at some point, as I believe it's an interesting question, especially considering that liquid nitrogen is already from the air we breathe, so aside from the electricity consumed here, 300 Below is pretty much a green company.

Oh, and I'm working on getting video blogging set up!  The Group CEO has requested this and I think it's a great idea.  You'll notice when we finally figure that one out.

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A lot has happened this weekend and rather than explain day by day, I will explain the weekend to you as one whole. I believe I left you hanging a few days ago when I mentioned that we presented our industry research and financial analysis to the chairman. So to summarize the presentation let me say it went well, for practice that is. I don’t say that to discredit the time and effort put into the making of the presentation but instead to say that I knew that the bar for this task was significantly higher than we jumped. None the less the chairman said he was pleased and impressed with our work.

Now earlier the morning of the presentation we woke late, it was 7:45, we had not left the cabin and we had a half hour drive ahead of us. In the interest of time we left Beni behind because he was not ready. Later that day we find out that Beni made his way to a nearby town called Champaign and intends to stay there for the weekend since the night life there is better that that of Decatur. Champaign is an hour drive, he made it there without a car and he left from the cabin which is out in no man’s land. I was baffled by the fact that he had made it out to Champaign but not surprised that he would behaved so irrationally. Somehow the team ends up in Champaign to check out the night scene, when low and be hold Beni pops up. At the end of the night he decided to join the rest of the group for a ride home. The following day Mr. Paulin informed Beni that his behavior needs to change if he would like to continue to be apart of this experience. As usual Beni was not receptive to criticism and heard everything that Mr. Paulin and the team had to say but didn’t listen. Shape up or ship out. Irie I, One Love. Charlie H.

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Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the Midwest.  Being born on long island and having spent most of my life within 20 minutes of Boston, I grew up with the stereotype that there’s nothing to do here.  If you like shopping for expensive clothes and surfing, you're right, but if you like tractor pulls and dirt track, you'll fit right in.  Truth be told, I have a strong preference for races that occur on pavement, but I'd take dirt track over the mall any day.  There's just one thing that that puzzles me.  I can't understand why people who dirt tracks in every county and tractor pulls at every fair drive soo slow.  Everywhere we go, the road is full of drivers traveling at or below the speed limit on the straightest, best maintained roads that I've ever seen in my life.  The worst part is the tendency of most people here to assume the speed of those around them.  This leads to an inordinate number of slowpokes riding side by side, for miles.  They can't be bothered to speed up or slow down a fraction of a mile per hour to pass or allow you to do so or drive in the same lane as the car that they're pacing.  This makes me wonder just how they got there.  Did their similar speeds result in them winding up next to each other after hours of driving?  Did they start out together?  Or did one of them just take a liking to the speed of the other during the process of passing them?

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Today was the longest days by far and it was long because we went scuba diving into the financials. We did not complete our analysis and we are not ready to present a proposal for doubling the company’s revenue to the chairman yet. We are however mentally drained; I would like to share something with you that I said today on a phone interview with the Heralds review. The reporter asked me to share something that I have learned so far, I was taken by the question and hesitated because as I started to think about all that I have learned thus far I simultaneously reminded myself that I had only been here a week and a half. I felt that I could have ranted and raved for an hour talking about facing fears as an entrepreneur, time management, people management, planning, communication, foresight, seeing opportunities, and much more. That is why I was hesitant because I said to myself, is it possible to learn about an array of topics in such a short period of time?

The answer is yes, but my answer to the reporter was a bit different. I told her that I learned why this internship is like none other. I used an analogy to it to her, I said that the difference is that normally when taking and internship at a given corporation the intern comes in feeling like clay. Hoping to be molded into something grand and more defined than when they entered. This internship however makes you the potter. As the potter you are responsible for molding this experience in every way, shape and form. From planning to purchasing, from reading to leading, and from managing to…..well more managing. Ultimately this internship is what we make it, and that is the life a CEO.

Irie I, One Love, Charlie H.

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Today what we needed to do and how we needed to do it was felt by all. We sat down with Mr. Paulin today after lunch and it was his last fifteen minutes with us until the upcoming Thursday since he was flying to Washington D.C. . Mr. Paulin let us know that he was aware that the group was on idol but not because of lack of drive or understanding on our part but instead because there are so many forces between the five of us coming into contact with each other. The forces arise since there are five decision makers with five different walks of life.

The office and cabin are our crucibles and the soup inside is what Mr. Paulin referred to as a dynamic situation. His charge to us left his tongue with an aura of simplicity, disguising its complexity. What he said was that there are five that need to act as one and in order to do so we all need to first have the same understanding of what our goal is, the overall goal as well as task oriented goals. When we understand our goals we then need to all agree on a system aimed at measuring task related behaviors and actions, so that we can quantify individual contributions to the completion of a given task.

Please understand that in his charge to us he said an infinite more that I can explain or rather than language can express but his words served as a catalyst for the, much needed, group conflict mediation talk that took place after. I will not get into specifics but I will say that a fair amount of underlying tension was fleshed out today. We took steps towards each other talking through our differences and we started to put a wise mans call of duty into action. Irie I, one love.

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Ladies and gentlemen, horses and cows, I come before you to stand behind you to tell you something I know nothing about. This Thursday the day after Friday there will be a ladies meeting. Men aren’t allowed but they are still permitted. Wear your best cloths, if you have none still come. Seats will be provided to sit on the floor, thank you for this wonderful announcement. Well I am strapped for time right now so I am typing and thinking a mile a minute so I apologize if I write in circles or incoherent sentences or have spelling errors. I am afraid I will not have a chance to go into much detail today but much has happened.

My days have begun with this work out program called CrossFit know to Beni as cross fight, I guess it’s a Russian thing. I do the work outs with Lieutenant Paulin in the mornings and since he is off to the Marines soon he is whipping himself into shape via a CrossFit trainer. He told me about CrossFit when I got here since I pestered him about daily exercise. Now the catch to this “great work out” is that I must wake up at 4am and start the work out at 5, which along with the work out being designed as a “burn out” makes cross fit a defining part of the morning since I head to the office right after I get burned out.

Moving on, after working out I went to the office and had our morning meeting then meet with Dave and Mr. Paulin to talk about the product they introduced to us, so long story short we ate lunch with Dave and talked business. Went to tractor pull in the evenings and now I am at the cabin and I just took a bite of the steak that nick took off the grill so got to go if I want to get to sleep soon.

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Wow, what a day! Up until today, I thought we could function without any conflict. But any successful group must face conflict, and well, today was our day. Just as we entered the office and said our greetings, we began our first daily meeting. Within moments, we drafted a quick agenda and began discussing various topics such as our WiFi situation, our Ebay sales challenge, the possibility of hiring a Cryogenic’s specialist and creating a code of conduct for appropriating our work time, basically the daily tasks every CEO encounters. We discussed several styles of leadership with accomplishing each of these tasks such as appointing a head person for each job or attempting to tackle everything as a group. In the best interest of time and efficiency, we determined to appoint individual leaders for each job.

As the meeting continued, we decisively resolved each problem and scheduled any remaining tasks. However, when we began discussing the company policy for conducting personal business on company time, an underlying tension surfaced. Instead of directly pointing fingers at one another, the team chose its words carefully, and determined that only in cases of extreme emergency could personal “business” be dealt with. To further assist with developing this policy, we met with 300 Below’s Dick Mayberry, the veteran sales manager, to share his past experiences with personal company policies. In turn, we learned that employees simply know better than to waste the company’s time. Simultaneously however, in the adjacent room, the CEO interns’ office, was one of the interns conducting personal business red handed.

Overall, it was quite an interesting, exhausting day as usual. Sides and tensions are beginning to form. How long will these develop before dangerously spilling over and pull the other interns into the cross fire?

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Today was the first day with structure, ahhh sweet discipline. Today unlike the first day we sat down together and talked about the actions for the day. This process which I call “down to earth” will happen every morning from 8-9am, we sit, talk and develop an action plan. I call it a process because that is the impression I have of it so far since it needs polishing. I understand that today was the first day of this developed structure but I am a bit impatient when I come to organizing a group because I feel that it should be blatantly apparent to each person that a group will not function unless the parts assemble.

Once we finally assembled, and by assemble I mean sat in the same space, talked in turn and constructively contributed to a given conversation we constructed an agenda. The agenda addressed company time (internet, phone calls etc), “Adventure capital,” WiFI, Daily and weekly schedules, and a call from Mr. Paulin about a doctor who we would like to host. My favorite part of the agenda is the “adventure capital” which is a term I came up with to describe raising capital by selling military equipment on Ebay. I call it an adventure because we have to find manuals and information for all of these parts also knows as “specs”, take pictures, clean them, and make sure they work, which was problem with an air compressor.

Thought the compressor didn’t work at first or brilliant engineer fixed it, though that was exciting the most valuable take away came from a series of phone calls. The first call came from a friend of Mr. Paulin’s and the second was from Mr. Paulin himself. The purpose of the calls were to inform the team about a potential investment that confused the mess out of us because we didn’t understand the first man we spoke to and naturally as whole we were dismissive. I was in the confused boat but wanted to know more and after talking with Mr. Paulin he energized my curiosity with a better phrased presentation of the opportunity. My take away was that even though the majority may dismiss and idea I should hold on to my natural inclination to seek out and understand before concluding.

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