CORPORATE ESCAPADES

Life is a progression,

where each turn leads to an excursion,

leaving a new impression

and making you a better person.

It was the bright and sunny Monday morning of January 6th, 2020.That day, the sun bought in a new spirit for my eyes to dream big. The morning gave me the signs of a new journey, the chirping birds motivated me to step out for an all-new beginning in my life. Then my eyes went over to the corner of my room where I saw the lovely bouquet of red roses sent to me by American Express as a token of love and welcome for its intern, then I realized then, that this was not the usual mundane Monday it was different, and it was going to be life changing.

I hustled and hurried to get ready for the orientation day hosted by American Express at the Hilton Hotel. Though I had done my internship as a summer intern at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in the last summer, I was still nervous and worried because I knew, until now, I was sitting on the warm couch of student life and that this would truly be a completely new experience as this was the entry to the corporate world. When I arrived I saw many young aspiring eyes filled with determination like me who had come from all parts of the country to start the launch of their careers as interns at AmEx.

The next day after a long journey from home in the midst of Bangalore traffic I reached Amex office where I had to kick start my career. At the office we were asked to collect laptops at 4th floor and wait a minute there awaited a surprise, yes we were given the Apple MacBook !,looking at that I immediately remembered one apt saying by the Apple CEO ,Steve Jobs, saying to “Stay hungry Stay foolish” and it was then I knew, I had to stay hungry to work and stay foolish to ask questions to learn, and that will enrich my intern journey at AmEx. That day I also met my team leader and mentor Roopashree B.R, who had a very warm and a charming personality, and who made us feel so friendly and at ease. I also met my fellow interns in my team, The Global Technology and Operation Services (GTOS).

After a couple of weeks of mandatory trainings at AmEx, I was introduced to my director Destin Dexter in Phoenix, Amex USA via a Webex meeting ,She has over 25 years of experience at AmEx and is truly a wonderful leader and a great person to look up to for her achievements at AmEx, As a woman she truly inspires me. Then started the work in a corporate style with a very professional introductory mail by Destin including information on my work, my role, goals, my points of contact and all the other details to start off my internship. Finally, after obtaining a clear knowledge of my field of work I was given the first task by another amazing person named Ismael Hamad who is really friendly and helpful at all times. I was asked to work on the Enterprise Money Management application of AmEx while there I had to write a script that would pair up ACH and ACK files and generate an email report which would state which bank has not sent back ACH files in order to help the team know which bank(s) to follow up with. Though there were hurdles at the beginning of the task in connecting the Python code and the Oracle SQL database, I must say I learnt how to handle them and overcome them professionally.

And bravo!!! I soon completed my task successfully! I also later learnt that this was the first time someone used Python to connect to a database, and to generate an email report. I was really happy and proud of myself to learning this.Then worked with ServiceNowAPI using Python this was really a great exposure for me to API its working as in college it was just told in a paragraph!!! At this point I would also like to thank Arif Khan my buddy at AmEx Bangalore who helped me and was a support at the times of hurdles and also my special thanks to Justin Tadlock who helped to raise the standard of my code to industry level and was a source of help at my times of need.

Finally I would say the whole internship was a new learning experience and that all moments are a moments to cherish, I can also assure myself and say that AmEx with its wonderful work culture and where they treat interns as integral part of the organization has turned me from an amateur student to a professional. At the end I would like to say that “Do Launch your Career at AMEX”. Hoping to learn more and contribute to AmEx by being a part of it further.

-SHRADDHA PRASAD