Workin'....

And just like that, I am now halfway through my internship, crazy! As most of you may know, since classes ended in February, I have been spending my days just like a regular 'ole Londoner, commuting to and from work everyday (and oh yah working in between). My placement has been with Beazley, which is a Lloyd's managing partner. This is how I describe it when people ask where I work because Lloyd's is a household name here in London (while Beazley has around 900 employees, Lloyd's has around 100,000).

I am working in the Risk Management department, which has been incredibly interesting. This department consists of both a risk team (who qualitatively determine risks) and a capital team (who quantitatively measure these risks). I have been working a bit with both teams, though probably more of my time has been with the risk team. I have had a number of interesting projects thus far, and I am really appreciative that everyone tries to give me projects that I can actually learn from rather than just dumping a load of busywork on me. Actually one of my favorite aspects of my job has been when I am invited to join in on various meetings, because not only do I learn about the subject that's being discussed, but I also just learn from observing the various dynamics that play out in different meetings. Also, my supervisor has been setting up meetings for me with various executives in which I can talk to them about their experiences, which has been very valuable and I'm very appreciative for (last week I met the CEO, and I'm just praying I didn't sound like a buffoon).

So for obvious reasons I don't really have any pictures to supply you with in this post about work (because although my colleagues suspect that I may be a bit bizarre, I didn't want to confirm to them that I'm a complete crazy person just yet, which going around taking pictures of myself in Nim in the office probably would have done). However, as a substitute I will share with you my perception of me at work every day:

Yet I realize, this is probably a much more accurate picture:

Ah well.

Now, as much as I would like to tell you all about how I fit the mold of picture A, I am instead going to share with you all the things I do at work on a regular basis that likely take me far from it:

• It took me 3 or 4 glasses of scarfing down the really tart juice we have in the kitchen before realizing that it was one of those juices you're supposed to dilute with water at a 1(juice) to 9(water) ratio. Oops.
• Admitting to my coworkers my lazy way of getting to work. Rather than take the direct line from Waterloo to Bank, instead I just to go northern line, switch to circle/district to get to Monument, because Monument station is about a 4 minute walk shorter to my office than Bank station. I get made fun of for this on almost a daily basis. Yes, I am lazy. 
• Ordering the "doorstop" sandwich, as the guy who sits next to me calls it, at least a couple times a week. The first time I ordered it, one of my coworkers looked at it with surprise saying that I wouldn't be able to finish it. I always finish it in approximately 3 minutes. And yes, the whole reason I'm ordering it is because I know its the biggest sandwich available and I know anything else would leave me hungry... (As context, I have had to explain to them that, while the rest of the world already thinks Americans eat badly, within America, the south is known for eating particularly fatty foods. One day they were asking me what my favorite breakfast foods were, which set me off on a tangent about biscuits and gravy, grits, and the likes, to which they stared blankly back at me and said "I don't know what any of those things are". What a sad life that must be)
• In general just averaging at least 3 or so cups of coffee a day, and that's when I make a conscious effort to cut back... I blame this one on my desk being 10 feet away from the kitchen.
• Staring longingly at the bags of chocolate that are sitting in eyesight from my desk, but belong to the IA team that sits nearby. It's torturous, especially when, unlike at my flat, I don't have a stash of 5 boxes of cookies available at all times (my roommates mention the occasional occurrence of opening our cabinet and having it "rain cookies" on them as I've tried to stuff in all my cookies).
• Spending my lunch break, since I've already eaten my free sandwich, going to a Pret or something nearby and just getting a cookie and reading my Kindle. The people who work there recognize me now as the cookie girl, it's slightly embarrassing.

So basically, as a summary, I'm doing a fantastic job dispelling stereotypes about Americans being fat and lazy.... oops.