1.2 Week at Eli Lilly

(MBA, Eli Lilly) Time flies so fast before I realized it. After helping the nice sponsor identify and validate the most reasonable acquisition strategy in MAP, I flew to Yellowstone National Park with friends and drove over 6 hours in the park every day for a week. The scenic view is really amazing and phenomenal. Bisons, Elks, Bears, and the geysers...
It seems like a nonstop journey for me after that. I flew back to Ann Arbor in the afternoon on May 16 and drove another 5 hours down to Indianapolis on May 17. The next day, I got up at 6 am and it took me a while to find the right way to the building where we were going to have the orientation. The first interesting I found about Lilly is that the streets in their campus cannot be located by GPS.
But the decoration in the building is pretty impressive. And, the orientation took half of the day, going through company culture, code of conduct, logistics and etc. During the orientation, the interns had chance to chat with each other. I came to know some interns with very interesting background. In the afternoon, my internship supervisor came into the lecture hall and picked up me.
At first glance, she had no smile on her face. A little bit seriousness to me though. But I tried to crack the iceberg and found some topics to schmooze with her. It did not work well but at least made me less embarrassed. So the US office culture is going to be the first lesson to learn here!
My supervisor walked me around the office and introduced me to Treasury team. People are nice to me. Then we set down to discuss my internship project. The project is to help Lilly Treasury build a new tool which is used to assess the trade credit risk of its customers and calculate the credit limit accordingly. This is related to all affiliates in the world. Obviously, she has set a pretty high expectation on me.
So far, I am clear about what I am going to deliver at the end of the day and leveraging sources, i.e. talk to process owners to understand current situation and seek their advice on the project. Meanwhile, I have to read through many documents to understand the credit policy and the change the team would like to vision in the near future. It is a bit challenging for me because it is my first time to work in a US office environment – the etiquette, the small talks, unwritten rules and jargons and so on are pretty new to me. Thus, I have to deepen my learning curve quickly to catch up with the fast-passing timeline. Lots of things to do, lots of fun to have but definitely hard work is the pre-requisite.
Indianapolis is a nice city, bigger than Ann Arbor. I had no time to wander around in downtown but plan to explore the area later. Also, Indy 500 is coming at the corner. There are going to be a lot of roaring at this weekend. I would be very excited to see the match then!