My CASE Experience (2)

Ok, so after that amazing day, I guess you can imagine how I felt about going back to that place. Little did I know that that was not the end of my problems!
Anyway, the next day, I got up and re-did the morning scenario from the previous day. Again, with all the enthusiasm in the world {ok, a little less enthused than the other day}, I headed straight to my dad's friend's office. He wasn’t there. During my wait, a man – whom I don’t know – came up to me and asked me who I was waiting for, and then he told me to wait for Mr.A in his office. So, we went to his office, and he told me that he'll call me to come down to him, so when the telephone rings, answer. I hate answering phones that are not mine. And what if it wasn’t that guy? Anyways, I sat there looking at the walls and not knowing what to do. In a while, the office boy came in and found me. He, of course, was surprised to find me in the office. Some way or another, I managed to explain the situation and he was ok, or maybe he just didn’t understand whatever I muttered.

After a while, the phone rang, and the guy told me to come down to him. So, my journey started, and I went down. He took me to another office in another building to see that manager. He sat me down for like 30 seconds. He asked me where I'm studying and called this other guy and told him I'm going to him and that I'll be training there for some time.
So, again I got up and went back to the other building and went to that other manager. He sat me down for like a minute. Actually this guy was pretty nice. A real gentleman. He doesn’t talk to anyone until he sits down and chills for a while. He talks with him a while to loosen up, whether a new person he is meeting or someone who just wants something from him or whatever. Anyways, after catching my breath, he told me I'd be spending my first week in a department called OTC. And, again, he sent me to the head of the department so I could meet him.

This time, thank God, the office was in the same building, only 3 floors up.
I went to the head's office, and he started to explain roughly the idea of the department. The he took me to the department's managers' office. They were two, a man and a woman. The women started talking first. There, I met another trainee, Ahmed; he was a fresh graduate from Faculty of Commerce CU. As soon as he found out that I'm an FCISian, he felt intimidated by me, although I am the one who should have felt so since, after all, this was his field. I didn’t really care anyway about that because I had a goal to achieve, which is finish all these departments so I could finally go to IT. But this Ahmed guy couldn’t stop trying to impress the managers!! He started talking all professional talk that of course I didn’t understand a word from, and he had that extremely weird grin on his face. Anyway, forgetting Ahmed for some time, the lady started saying again what the department does a little bit more details, just a little bit. After she finished she asked that other guy if he wanted to add anything and he said no nothing, just if you guys need anything, Ahmed or I, his office is always open for us. Then the lady took us to the office where we'll be spending the rest of the week.

The office was a small room, smaller than my room I guess, consisting of 5 desks with an employee on each one. The room was filled with brokers. The OTC is simply the transfers of stocks that happens between a buyer (normally a regular person) and a company which has not yet reached the set specifications by CASE so their deals do not happen in the CORBE (which is what you see on TV with the brokers on their PCs and telephone).
Each one of these employees has a minimum of 3 files which may contain more than one transfer. What they do is check that the procedure is correct, which means they check all the given documents and make sure that they are correct so that they guarantee the existence of the stocks that will be transferred. In short, they guarantee that the buyer does indeed get his stocks and that they are not fictitious.

When the lady took us to the office, she introduced us and we sat down at the end of the room. I sat there looking around, watching the employees and the brokers. A totally new world for me. I sat there looking around, when I finished looking at the people, I started looking at the stacked folders all around the room. No one even turned to tell us a thing. Then that Ahmed guy, told me to come with him and that he'll take me to show me around. I was bored and had nothing to do, so I went with him. He showed me around to a couple of offices with some people that work there. Turns out, Ahmed had trained last year in CASE. So I asked him what he did during his last training, he told me sit up there like you saw. And he seemed so surprised that I was asking or objecting. He told me, what do you expect, that they'll make you work or even take the time to explain something to you!! I asked him if he had benefited anything and the reason he came back. He told me that he didn’t really benefit much except meeting new people and building relations, and he came back because he thinks that that way he would have the priority in getting a job in CASE. He still didn’t get what I'm so surprised about. Anyway, I got bored of this guy trying to impress me (not in a good way) and make me feel like I'm a total loser. I went back to the office, and I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to go to the managers and just do something about it.

I went there, all huffy and stuff, and asked the guy there (the one who told us if we had any problems we go to him) what exactly am I supposed to do? The guy was stunned. As if I'm the first person ever to ask that question. He asked me what I meant, so I told him that for sure I'm not supposed to sit there and do nothing all day. He told me actually I don't know, why don’t you go to the head and ask him. The guy was very nice actually, he seemed helpful but he just couldn’t help me. Again, all huffed up, I went to the head, lucky for him he wasn’t there, I seriously do mean he is lucky I didn’t find him. But his secretary was there. I asked her the same question, she told me sit there, you think you can learn the work so soon, no way, even that week you are spending is not enough to understand anything. I told her yes but I already understood what's going on and I need at least to do anything practically, under the supervision of anyone. She told me of course you can't, you just go and sit there you'll learn a lot!!!

Absolutely furious and out of my mind, I returned to the office and sat on the lovely chair. I, again, started to look around me. There was only one woman in the office along with 4 other men. I was sitting in front of her. She noticed that I was furious and so pissed off, so she apologized to me for not being able to sit with me that day because she was very busy but the next day she'll sit with me and explain things and even work with her in an operation she is doing.

To make this a very exciting first day, the head came into the office and found me sitting there, he told me by the way you don’t need to stay here till the official working hours, you can leave and come anytime you like.

After reading the story of my "official" first day, how long do you think I stayed there???

Amazingly, I reached there 10, went to OTC 10:30, left CASE at about 1:30!!!
Wait for more, that was just the start!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My CASE experience (1) ...

And I'm back to bug you again =D
I bet y'all missed me so much =D

Well, I have been busy interning in CASE. To FCISians CASE is Computer Aided Software Engineering. But now, I have a new meaning for CASE; Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange, my summer home !!
I have been trying to write about my experience there for quite some time now, but I just kept delaying it. But I have finally made up my mind, I'm going to write.
I'll start the story from the beginning.
It all started when my dad found out I was looking for places to intern in, that was like the beginning of last year's first term. I had sent my CV to a couple of places, started asking some people to ask if they have an interning program where they work and just waiting for someone to answer. And one day, my dad came home so happy with a huge smile on his face, and just couldnt wait to tell me the happy news, that he actually told me as soon as he closed the house door !! ( My dad usually waits tell he's changed his clothes and then calls whoever he holds news for and then spills it out.) With a HUGE smile he said:" I found two places for you to intern in, very very good places, you'll need to get me a certificate from your college for one because its a governmental internship, but the other place is private so you don't need any documents,".
Of course, hearing that, I was extermly and utterly excited, mainly because of his excitment. I then found out that he got me an internship in CASE and another member firm. I actually thought it was cool. If you think about it, you'll find that a main department in SE is IT and database developing and stuff, which is exactly what I want. So, I thought to myself, well cool, its settled, I'm going to intern in CASE for a month, then in that member firm for another month and finally take a break till the start of college. It seemed as a perfect plan. And the search stopped. Having found a place to intern, I finally felt safe and organized. I started preparing myself mentally and emotionally. I had those pink dreams; I'm going to show them how great I am, they'll want to hire me as soon as I graduate, I'll be active and do the impossible, I'll beat all the trainees and make my superiors see that they have never ever had such a trainee before.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Just thinking of those dreams makes me laugh. !!!
The people who know me, know that I'm not a quitter, I'm a strong person with a strong personality that always gets what she wants someway or another. Well, for sure I didn't stand there doing nothing when troubles came my way.
Now that you know the start and how that internship came, I'll start telling my story .....

I decided to start on 1/7/2007 , which was a sunday.
I got up at 7:30am, got dressed, was extremely excited, actually took pictures of my first day and was off to my aunt's place; she drops me off to CASE. When I got there she was ready and waiting for me in the car so that I wouldn't be late for my first day. We reached there about 10 may be or even earlier than that. I had visited CASE once before when I found out I'm going to intern there. I had met my dad's friend, who got me the internship, and knew where his office was. I headed staright to his building, I just wanted to make sure that that really was the building, so I looked for the security guards, but couldn't find a single one of them. I found an office next to the information office, I entered. There was a lady sitting there talking on the phone, I asked her if that was my dad's friend's office. Her reply was soooo relieving .............................
The wonderful lady told: " I actually don't know, sorry. But they are on holiday today .. { me going crazy from inside at this moment :nod } .. its the end of their finiancial year,".
Having nothing to say, I thanked the lady and left.
I was in a total rage. I was sooooooo angry. I WOKE UP EARLY =O
So, I called my dad, he told me ok, no problem, go to your uncle's office ( its right next to CASE ).
Apparently, my dear father had not called his friend to tell him that I'll be going to him that day.
I went to my uncle's office, where my aunt was. She couldn't believe it when she saw me. She just burst out with laughter, she couldn't stop and I didn't blame her, I couldn't stop laughing either.
I stayed with my aunt all day in my uncle's office and did some work and then went home at the end of the day.

And that was my first day at CASE, in a way.

The rest is yet to come ... Stay Tuned =D