Farewell

This is my last post and also my last week for this internship. I will be graduating in a couple of days, and I could not be more excited. I have seen myself grow so much from the time I started the MPA program to now. Since I actually had this internship before I started the program, and I look back and compare how I was then to now. When I came back in January after a year of graduate, I could definitely see that I had grown a lot. The one large thing I have taken from graduate school is that everything is not as simply as it seems. Before I felt I was very narrow minded, but after the knowledge I have gained from school and work, I feel I can see a bigger picture than before. With being able to graduate, I am excited to see what the future holds for me. I know I still have a lot to grow, but with the growth I have made in the past year and a half, I know the future looks bright. I would like to thank my professors who made my experience so awesome and my co-workers at the City Mesa. I will miss everyone, and I hope everyone the best.

200 Years of Catching Bad Guys

On the homepage of Inside Mesa, an article caught my eye. “Mesa PD will be 200 years of combined police service.” What drew me to the article was that I was wonder how many people were combined to make the 200 years. The answer is 7. Lieutenant Kent Kasik, Lieutenant Greg Penrose, Lieutenant John Pruitt, Lieutenant Lynn Young, Detective Curtis Adams, Officer Stephen Clark, and Detective Travis Metcalfe are all retiring from the Mesa PD. With an average service of around 30 years, I think it is great to see people who have such distinguished careers. With my girlfriend working at a police supply store, I have learned more about the police in the Phoenix Metropolitan area, and I have gained a lot more respect for these individuals. I hope these 7 officers have a great retirement, and I would like to thank them for all of their hard work.

Lunchtime

The other week, my boss took me out to lunch with a few of my co-workers. We ended up going to a Vietnamese restaurant, which I was excited about because my girlfriend and I go to one regularly in Tempe. The restaurant was located in a shopping mall which was a converted Target. The conversion looked very well done. This was my first time at this Asian market, but my co-workers have gone here many times. Before we sat down, I already know what I was going to get before I received the menu. I always get bun chi when I go to a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was good, but what made it better was the frozen yogurt at the end. After an extended lunch, we went back to the office. I thought it was great to have been able to have gone out with everyone before I left. I will certainly miss everyone when I leave.

Vote for Prop 100

Tensions are high around the office again due to budget cuts. There have been emails from the city manager explaining about how the city is going to cut the funds to meet the budget. As it currently stands, no one will be getting a pay cut, but this will be contingent on whether Prop 100 passes. If Prop 100 does not pass, many cities believe the state will be taking the money from the state shared revenue. With a city that is already scraping by, another blow will costly. This would be their second pay cut. If this keeps occurring, I wonder how long the employees will stay with the city. I know the situation will not get as bad as Greece, but I wonder how many blows the city employees can take.

Peter

Peter is my cat. A friend of mine gave him to my girlfriend when he was just a kitten but since she lives with a roommate who is allergic to cats, he has lived with me for the last two years. Based on this fact, I consider him mine though my girlfriend would disagree. He’s a very interesting fellow. Although he is eager to make friends with the ladies, Peter avoids most people, specifically my roommate who he is petrified of. Peter’s days are spent lounging in bed, sitting in the closet, attracting stray cats by displaying himself in the windows, staring at the fish tank, and chasing bouncy balls. Peter’s nights are spent frantically running through the blinds when he has caught the attention of one of those stray cats. He’s pretty reliable in that he greets me at the front door when I come home from school and stays up with me when I pull all-nighters studying for class. For whatever reason, it has become some what of a ritual for Peter to want to fight me whenever I am near him when he is on his post. I’ll stand near him and he’ll give me a menacing look, let out a strange meow and try to jump at me. I willingly participate in this activity but make sure to wear protective clothing (as seen above). My girlfriend finds this occurrence highly amusing because he attempts no such action with her even when she tries to provoke him.

If at first you don't succeed, order pizza.

My girlfriend and I love to cook. Every week or so we come up with a few ideas for prospective dinners before heading out to the 24-hour Fry’s to seek out essential ingredients. As a college student, having a 24-hour grocery store nearby has proven exceptionally handy and splitting the grocery bill is very cost effective. Typical standby’s of ours include chicken parmesan, italian sausage with fresh tomatoes, garlic, and basil served over angel hair topped with crumbled feta cheese, and of course, tacos. My girlfriend enjoys experimenting in the kitchen with recipes she finds online. Luckily for me in these hectic last weeks of my final semester in grad school, her enthusiasm with cooking has put food on the table and less stress on me to prepare a decent meal for myself. Tonight we had taquitos and despite the fact the process smoked out my apartment, they were delicious. The secret ingredient was a handful of pepper jack cheese thrown into the chicken mixture that filled the taquitos. Recently, I’ve grown accustomed to the taste of avocados. I’m not exactly sure what initially deterred me from eating them but since dating my girlfriend, who absolutely loves them, I’ve found myself actually enjoying them.

My Passion

Soccer is by far my favorite sport. I currently play in an amateur men’s league in Scottsdale, and I thoroughly enjoy it. When I first joined the league, I felt like my skills were a little more refined, but throughout the seasons, my lack of actively playing has affected my skills. I am not as in shape or as good as I was, but now being in a more relaxed setting, I am enjoying the game more. I just go out and enjoy myself now. I do not take it as personal anymore if we lose or win. I just want to play with a good group of guys. Today we had a game, and we won 8-1. Surprisingly, I even scored too.

Anyway, this summer the World Cup will begin. I am so excited for it. I hope I do not stay up too late every night trying to watch it, but to throw out my vote of who I think will win, I choose Argentina. Messi is too good of a player, and he will shine this year.

On a side note, go Blues (they are in first place)! I know they can beat Man U and win the title. I am sorry if this post might seem a little unstructured, I just wanted to ramble a little bit about soccer because I am super excited for the World Cup coming up.

Leaving Work Early

Last week, I was able to leave early from work. Though I went in earlier, it was a change getting off so early on a Thursday afternoon. I took a half day because I was being inducted into Pi Alpha Alpha. The half day was supposed to be a whole day, but I got my dates mixed up. About three weeks ago, my boss came up to me and told me that she was taking off a future Thursday to volunteer for her daughter’s field trip, and she told me that I had the option of whether or not I would want to come in. I thought about it, and I told that this worked out perfectly because I was just going to ask her if I could take a half day on that Thursday anyway for the SPA lunch. Little did I know that my dates were mixed up. I found this information out about a week later, and I felt awkward that now I would have to tell her about my mistake. I asked her if this date (the correct one) would be fine to do a half day. She was fine with the arrangement.

The SPA lunch was great. With the event being in the middle of the day, I did not think that a lot of people would attend, but there was an awesome turnout. The food was decent, the décor was charming, and it was pleasant seeing Sam Feldman on the slide show. The event was great. I was able to meet with previous classmates and professors. I would like to congratulate everyone who was recognized at the event especially Dr. Heather Campbell -- I hope you have fun in San Diego!

Single File

At my job, I have begun to take on more tasks. I feel bad because I do not have the time to assist in accounts payable anymore which concerns me because I help out two of my co-workers when I do this and I do not want to leave them with mounds of work. But since the RTP (Regional Transportation Plan) files have become my responsibility, my boss feels the need for some reorganization. What is happening is the files contain all of the forms, budget requests, accounting information, previous MAG billing statements, invoices, and so on. Though some projects may last only three years, we are beginning to see a problem with some projects which may last up to ten years. One of the project which deals with Greenfield and Baseline is my biggest worry because the previous MAG billing statement alone was at least 150 pages, and for this go around, the MAG billing statement was well over 250 pages. As many of you know, file folders can only hold so much. With auditors always coming and the need to pull previous information, we are brain storming to figure out a way to properly store the information so it will be easy to locate. I was thinking banker boxes would be key, but I do not know if this would be more efficient than just adding more file folders in the file cabinet. So for instance, we would have two file folders for Greenfield and Baseline. Oh, what to do? What to do? I just want to make sure that for the next intern which comes in, they will not have a hard time navigating through the folders.

All That and a Bag of Chips: Volunteer Appreciation Week

This past week, the City of Mesa held Volunteer Appreciation Week. Though I am considered an intern, I am not paid so that makes me a volunteer also. The week started with a get together on Monday where the Mayor would come and recognize you with your supervisor, but with the end of the school semester approaching, I was unable to attend due to my heavy course load. After skipping this event, I kind of forgot about Volunteer Appreciation Week, but to my surprise on Thursday, my co-workers (Remy and Stella) came bearing gifts. I was excited and grateful to have such great co-workers. Even though the job does not pay, the work environment at the City of Mesa has been one of the best I have experienced. They gave me some candy, a box of chips, and a cake. They decided to give me food because they never see me snacking, and they felt bad. I was touched by their thoughtfulness and realized that when I leave in May I would truly miss working here. Since I had to leave early that day, we ended up having cake at 10 in the morning which is nothing new for me, but it was great to talk with them. The gesture made me feel truly appreciated during Volunteer Appreciation Week.

How to Write a CV

I will be graduating in May, but I have not been able to find a job yet. Recently after reading the Economist, I came across an opening in London for a statistician/social researcher position. I became excited about the thought of being able to move to London. So I emailed the company to make sure that it would not be a problem that I was an American citizen. About a week later they got back to me saying that they encourage applications from anywhere in the world. They just wanted to know if I would be able to meet the requirements to receive a visa. I passed that test so I moved onto completing the application. For me the application was a whole new experience since our English can have different meanings for things. For example I did not know what a surname was. After completing this, I realized that the company did not accept resumes. They wanted CVs, and the only CVs I have seen before were the ones professors completed, but I had never done one myself.

So I decided to do a walk-in appointment at the ASU Career Services Center. Luckily there were not too many people in front of me, and I only had to wait for about 15 minutes. Soon I was called back, and I began to explain my situation with the advisor who I believe was the assistant director. I asked her if there was a basic format to a CV, if she had any suggestions, and if she wanted to look at my resume. She informed me that she was not that familiar with the format of a CV, but she told me the CV is basically a more descriptive resume. She asked me a few questions about my jobs, coursework, and so on and told me examples of what I should emphasize. Even though she was not as helpful as I wanted for the CV, I am to blame for that because think about it, how often does a student come in asking about a CV. If I would have made an appointment, I could have requested someone whose emphasis was with CVs, but she was very informative with helping me with my resume. She gave me great formatting tips that I think enhanced the quality of my resume. Overall, I was impressed with my experience at the Career Services Center.

Movie Time

This past weekend, my girlfriend and I went to the movies. We saw How to Train Your Dragon which was a great stress reliever. School and everything else in life has become very stressful. I am sure everyone has had their moments this semester, but this movie came at a perfect time for me. The movie was predictable and childish, but that is what made it great. There was not much thinking involved so there was more enjoying.The movie centered around Vikings who live rugged lives and kill dragons; what more could you ask for? So if you have time to blow some steam, grab your Harkins loyalty cup and go catch the next showing of How to Train Your Dragon.

Perfection?

I have seemed to master the art of gathering reimbursement money. During the process, my supervisor was supportive but she let me go and figure out the system myself. When I started this project of gathering information, my supervisor would give me an assignment, but she would only point me in the right direction. I would have to figure out how to complete the assignment myself. Though she said she was there if I needed anything and I know she was, but I would strive not to ask her questions. This may have been stubborn, but it was a very helpful process for me. It seemed I messed up many times but isn’t that what an internship is for. Though I messed up, my supervisor would discuss with me what I did wrong such as deleting a formula on excel. These mistakes have helped me to become very knowledge about excel. So now that I have in relative terms perfected this process, I am curious how fast I can get through the next MAG billing period. Will I be able to blow through it in a week or two or will it be an elongated process like before.

Instructions

I will be leaving my internship May, and I fear the next intern will be as clueless as I was. So I am in the process of writing out instructions (in very fine details let me add) of how to complete this on-going project. This is one of my first experiences in writing a training manual, and I feel I am being a little too specific. I mean, I wrote 3 full pages on just how to pay off accounts on Quick Books. I want to make sure I put in all the little things that come up as questions such as some accounts will have a discounted amount which means the payment is pending but the account is closed. Though this is rare, I want to make sure the next person will know what to do. The only thing I am afraid of is that the instructions I am making will be too overwhelming. I just hope I can make it easier for the next person and make it less demanding on my supervisor so she will not have to waste time on explaining these procedures.

The Cubs

There has been a lot of talk around the Mesa and the Chicago Cubs. Earlier in the year, the Arizona legislation passed a bill which would implement a surcharge on rental cars and ticket prices to help pay for a new spring training stadium for the Chicago Cubs. The new stadium would keep the team here for another 25 years. This is big for the City of Mesa and their tourism, but was this the best way to go about getting the funding? Bud Selig, the MLB commissioner sure does not think so. He will not support a surcharge against other fans’ ticket prices, and the plan singles out and favors one team. If I were doing an analysis on the situation, I would sure give this idea a very low score on equity. The Chicago Cubs is a very important team to have financially for spring training, but shouldn’t the legislation have asked for money from the industries in Mesa who receive finances from the incoming tourist to help pay for the costs? Why not, the legislation is fine about fighting about a 1 penny sales tax increase, but they are quick to throw money (8% percent ticket increase) from non-Cub fans to pay for a stadium. Why would it not be a bad idea to have the industry support the stadium expenditure?

Also there have been many reports on how sports stadium decrease money in a city anyway. Would Mesa be that much worse off if the cubs were not in town? Who knows? I can tell you that I am not a Cubs fan and I really do not feel like I need to pay for the stadium. If the Cubs have the most ticket sales out of any of the Cactus league teams, shouldn’t there fan base be able to pay for it. I think it is a simple supply and demand case.

Where Did You Go? My LTAF Funds. Where Did You Go?

During spring break, there was a little ruling on the Arizona budget. The legislation took away cities’ LTAF funds. Even though it seems public transportation has been becoming a big thing in Arizona along with becoming more environmentally friendly, the cutback is felt not only in the City of Mesa, but all across the state. On my floor, there are two people who directly deal with transit. They are currently in a bind right now. On March 23, 2010, the City of Mesa proposed new plans such as cutting Saturday services and shortening routes. This is a very troubling situation because many of the citizens rely on public transit to get to work, and I am sure some of these people work retail and a cut to Saturday services could be devastating for their job performance. I know the budget problem is extremely troubling, but I am waiting for the legislation to make a good and well thought out budget cut. Not ones which deteriorate our community’s foundations. With all of these problems, I wonder if the state will send out IOU’s for the work I have been doing. Arizona is sitting in a horrible position, and I am not liking the outcomes of the legislation’s decisions so far.

Financial Programs

So far I have worked for three different accounting/finance departments. Every time I get the run through of their financial programs, everyone always tells me that the program is not perfect, but it is the best there is. Each program I have used, such as QuickBooks, IBM’s AS 400, MBS, and HOST, seem to have their own quirks, but since I do not extensively use these programs, I have not had a problem with any of them. I actually think Quicken Books is an easy and straight forward way to pay off accounts, but at the City of Mesa, I have yet another chance to use another financial program because we are in the works of getting a new financial system. We do not know yet which program they will choose, but my boss has been going to many meetings with clients to see which program will be the best fit for the City of Mesa. Even though I am only a rookie with the old program, I am excited to see how this new program will make my life easier. I just hope the program will not be a black and green screen because even though my computer is brand new, this screen type makes me feel like I am in the 90’s.

Wii and Netflix

This past Christmas, I received a Wii from my parents. I was really excited about it because who doesn't enjoy playing video games, especially interactive ones? About a month ago, my girlfriend was on The Consumerist (which is a neat website if anyone has time to check it out) and noticed a posting about Netflix developing a disc for the Wii so customers would be able to stream instant movies through the console. We thought it was an awesome idea and immediately signed up for it. The disc was free, and I just received it this past Friday. Let me just tell you that this is the best thing ever. Before, I had to constantly connect, disconnect, and reconnect my computer to the tv, switch all sorts of settings, and use several cords and adapters just to utilize Netflix's Instant feature. Now, I just put the Netflix disc into the Wii and BAM! there is my Netflix Instant queue. I have probably watched at least 6 movies since I have gotten the disc. So if anyone has a Wii and Netflix account, I suggest you should get this disc.

Career Fair

On Wednesday, I was able to make the downtown career fair. Compared to the Tempe campus’s career fair, the downtown one is about two to three times smaller. So going into it I did not think it would be useful for me. I ended up getting to the building around 12:30, and the event was packed with people. So I sat down and mapped out who I was going to see, and how the event was set up. I was able to meet with people from the IRS, Social Security Administration, FBI, Target, and the Census Bureau. My biggest success came from the Census Bureau. After meeting with the recruiter, she wanted to set up an interview with me, and we scheduled it for after the fair at 2. I was excited yet nervous because going into the event I was not thinking I would be engaging in interviews.

After the career fair ended, I helped the recruiter from the Census Bureau clean up, and shortly after we sat down outside and began talking. The interview was pretty straight forward with questions like what three characteristics should a leader have. I smiled at this question because for 509 we recently talked about Good to Great for a while. After the interview she was very enthusiastic about me, and she said I was exactly who she was looking for to fill these positions. I left excited at the thought of moving to DC and thought it was a fitting birthday present.

Cubicle Communication

I work on the second floor of the transportation building in Mesa. The second floor is fairly large and about 15 people work on it. I work in a spacious 5x10 cubicle. At my previous job, we had about 5 employees in a small, open room where the atmosphere was very sociable. Since coming to the City of Mesa, I have been surrounded by finance and planning employees, but I still have not figured out how to properly communicate with my co-workers. Inside the cubicle, I feel confined. I cannot simply turn around and talk to someone because there are so many walls enclosing people. To add to this, I work in finance, so when I see people working, they look very into their work, and I would not want to disrupt them.

To combat this problem, I have gotten lucky, and I have enjoyed lunch with a few of my co-workers. Outside of the cubicles, it is a lot easier for me to interact with all of them. Recently, I have not been able to bring my lunch to work and I have felt like I have missed out on a lot of engagement time with my co-workers. This is an on-going process for me to communicate with everyone better, so if anyone has any suggestions I am open to hearing your thoughts.

State Reimbursements

I wanted to talk a little about the work I do in my internship. The main focus of my job is collecting grant money from the state. My job is to organize, update, and find expenditures from certain city transportation projects which are available for reimbursements from the state. The reason why I do this is because in 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 400. The proposition authorizes a 20-year continuation of the half-cent sales tax for transportation projects in Maricopa County (ARS 38-6345). This half-cent sales tax will help pay for transportation projects such as road widening, renovations of old roads, and so on. The way the process works is the City of Mesa will pay 100% of the costs up front, and at the year-end of the budget, my boss and I will go through the expenditures to match up the costs of the projects with the numbers in all the other departments. Once we have balanced numbers, we will calculate and charge the state 70% of the costs. The 70% will be paid from the generation of the half-cent sales tax. The process is very time consuming because not every department will have the exact same numbers and we have to locate and address the discrepancies. We are hoping to find around a million dollars in reimbursement money for this fiscal year, but with the budgetary crisis, the 20-year plan has been altered, and there have been some projects which have been suspended. So I think this number is a little high, but I think it is good to have promising hopes during these times.

Having the responsibility of this job makes me feel very proud. I know many of the concepts are advanced for my financial skills, but with being able to save the city money and maybe jobs, this accountability helps motivate me to learn and complete the job to my best ability. With cities trying to scrap and save, I feel I am completing an important duty. I am worried about the current financial situation at the City of Mesa, and I do not know what will happen with the FY 11’s budget. But I hope the work I do can help alleviate some of the stress during these times.

Why Hello

I currently work as an Accounting Intern in the Transportation department at the City of Mesa. The job is somewhat familiar to me because it is my second time working here. Last May I had to leave the internship to pursue another opportunity due to financial reasons, but 8 months later, here I am back where I came from. When I left the first time I was a little sad because I did enjoy the job very much. I found the organizational culture to suit my personality well. My co-workers create a very welcoming environment, and even with the hard financial times, everyone I have come across still seems to go out of their way to ask how I am doing. It is nice to walk down a hallway and rather than getting a head nod or someone trying to avoid eye contact; I always get a “Hey, how are you today?” or an observation about the weather. These subtle gestures go a long way for me.

Although the organizational culture is great, the reason I chose this internship is because I wanted to gain some financial/accounting experience in the public sector since government accounting is different from the private sector accounting. Also I believe every manager needs a good financial background. So I am following this belief and I am trying to fine tune my finance skills.

Anyway, the internship has been great so far. I have completed various AP tasks, and I just started on my big budgetary project. I do not want to give too much away about the project yet because I know I will be talking about it more as the semester goes on, but I am excited to tackle the challenge.