I may have just experienced the most embarrassing moment of the internship, and it’s only day two! I’ll post it here, and save the specific details about my job for another post.

Murray and I had a meeting arranged with Don Macleod, the CEO and Eddie Sweeney, the VP of National Semiconductor (NSC) this morning. National Semiconductor has a beautiful sprawling campus-like set of offices, with a gorgeous internal garden like the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow, equipped with a café. I arrived bright and early this morning and tried to find my way from the main building across the 80 acre campus to my office, they way we’d been taken yesterday. All the buildings have letters and I was pretty sure that mine was B, but none of them looked familiar, so I asked two NSC employees who were heading out of the building if they could help. Building B? No one was sure where it was. At which point we see Don Macleod (CEO) walking towards us. Mortified that my first interaction would be on this confusing point, it seemed to stump him too. After introductions we left Don Macleod and continued to the next block only to discover that I am in fact working in building D, not B. B is the café.  The two employees introduced themselves; the VP of sales in the Americas and the head of sales in the Bay Area

After dropping off my bag at my desk, I set off to meet Don and Eddie. I was so embarrassed –I’d managed to let the half the senior executive know about my simple mistake, before I’d even met them. They must have thought I was I total ditz.

And in another company that might have been the case. But Don Macleod and Eddie Sweeney were both really warm and personable. Everyone that I speak to in the company tells me how friendly they are, and often how Don Macleod knows who they are personally. An impressive feat considering that there are 1800 people working on this site.

News travels fast. Several people that I meet during the day (Eddie Sweeney included) mention the incident to me. Turns out that building B often refers to a bar nearby (alcohol is forbidden on the premises). So calling it your office is definitely not the way to make a good impression.

It’s inspirational to see how involved the executive of NSC are with the company. Don and Eddie took precious time this morning to sit and talk to Murray and me, and made us feel like they had all the time in the world to chat about the development of their company, Scotland and the Celtic match that’s taking place in California.

I can’t really believe that today’s events actually took place. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity from the Saltire Foundation, and can’t wait to find out what the rest of the trip has in store.

Catch y’all later,

Adina