This year a key part of my New Year resolution is to learn as much as I can from the Gorilla (multinational) that is Liberty Mutual, with hopes of bringing a fresh perspective to my project and taking in all that is good from all facets of the company which could be injected into the Scottish ‘monkeys’ (small to medium companies) we would be working with later.

And you never know when you would learn new things. On January 3^rd Amina Nabi and I (both working for Liberty Mutual) jet lagged as we were, were asked to come in to the office a day earlier than we were all scheduled to start.

Haven flown into Boston just the night before, we arrived the office headquarters exhausted but determined to make the most of the day, but were off to a slow start when asked to attend the general orientation programme. As we had already done our research on Liberty Mutual I assumed there would be nothing new to learn, however during the presentation on salary and pay slips, I noted that Liberty Mutual only makes the first pay slip available online, via their staff intranet. As I mused on this, I realised part of the reason for doing this must be to encourage new employees to browse and understand the intranet, in order to figure out where their pay slips were.... How obvious and yet how clever!

So, now begins the second part of the programme, and learning starts today... or should I say two days ago? ... Before I take my leave however, I must highlight another change this year, which is that the merry ‘Fellowship of the Saltire’ as Fahd Baig aptly described us, is currently scattered across various parts of the U.S.A. I am now truly starting to realise just how close we had become, how much we complimented each other as a team and how much I value my ‘support network’! While this phase of the programme gives us the opportunity to stand on our own two feet, it also identifies the need for a well established alumni, one where we could share ideas, support each other and keep the entrepreneurial fire burning bright!