This week at Lab49 Tower I have moved from researching to project managing. The marketing plan Claire and I are now working on presented a perfect opportunity to kill 2 pigs with one stone: As well as carrying out the project, we are actually managing it. Ross spent some time explaining the methods used by the project managers at The Lab and Thursday morning saw us drawing up a list of deliverables for ourselves and structuring how we intend on delivering upon the delivery of these deliverables. Deliver is a very important adjective in the consultancy world. We use it at least as often as a postman would, for example.

Seriously though, up until now I could safely have said that I have had no real project management experience at all, a fact which is probably very obvious to anyone who knows me and has asked me to arrange something simple such as a night out. Although I like telling people (usually via my CV) that I am a highly efficient, uber disciplined planning machine, the truth is I am about as well organized as a burst couch in a china shop (this was very close to being the blog title until I met Senor Messi). For anyone not familiar with my metaphor mashing tendencies that means I’m highly disorganized. Learning about and experiencing high level project management, then, will do more than just allow me to construct interesting spreadsheets on this internship. It really seems like a highly adaptable set of principles which could be used for a number of things in life. In fact if anyone fancies going out for a few drinks, say perhaps in a brewery, then why not give me a shout when I get back and I promise I will make up for past organizational failures.

One of our first tasks was to conduct a series of interviews with various people in the firm in order to identify how they would like to see their area of the business progress in the future. The information which came out of these interviews is of course essential to the marketing plan but it also turned out to be very interesting, probably helped by the fact that each interviewee was highly passionate and enthusiastic in their outlook. With a couple more interviews still to come, next week is shaping up to be just as busy. 

Socially, this week has been a quiet one although I did discover my 1^st ever Hero sandwich. Picture a footlong sandwich from Subway. Then add 6 inches. There’s your dinner. Cheap, tasty, plentiful, and downright heroic. I can see myself having a few more of those before this internship is over.

I also managed to encounter a guy standing on the corner of a street with a Gandalf-esque staff in his hand shaking it vigorously at passers-by and muttering incantations in some strange tongue. The temptation to ask him what he was doing was significant but I resisted by virtue of the fact I was sure he’d be equally tempted to stop shaking and start swinging the staff at the face of anyone with the power to withstand his magic who dared to approach him. Instead I chose to walk swiftly past him, eyes down, and all I got for my troubles was a seemingly ineffective spell, although I started to consider abandoning any future career in the business world in favour of becoming a frog almost as soon as he had finished incantating. I don’t care what spellchecker says, that IS a word. This experience has gone on to inspire the first rule of my Chris Jones New York survival guide:

Rule 1) Never make eye contact with a guy who casts spells on the corner of a street.

Other rules include:

Rule 2) If a sign says 7 t-shirts for $10 it definitely doesn’t mean 7 t-shirts for $10.

Rule 3) If you think a subway carriage is full, picture it with another 5 people squeezed up against the door. Then it’s full.

Rule 4) You can never hear the story of the time I hitch hiked from Glasgow to Egypt often enough.

Rule 5) When ordering a meal small means large, medium means extra large and large means you’re going to vomit if you eat it all.

Other rules will continue to be added as my internship progresses with a view to passing the guide on to future NYC interns.

Now to get to Sundays adventures: Ever since arriving in NYC I have made it my mission to set aside an afternoon to get on a subway train and get off at a random stop then explore. Sunday afternoon seemed like the perfect time to do it. I set off for the 86^th street Lexington avenue station armed with my Metrocard, Blackberry (in case of emergency) and a small (large) hot dog. A quick glance at the station map instantly yielded plenty of random destination options and I settled on taking the 5 train to Bronx Park East. As soon as I sat down on the train I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

Seat choice on a journey such as this, where one is looking for interesting things, becomes a crucial factor so I chose to sit next to a white haired, highly bearded and heavily tattooed man who was chatting animatedly to the woman next to him. What started as a 2 way conversation degenerated quickly into a long monologue as he covered a wide range of topics including the rarity that is a free barbeque in The Bronx, his upcoming doctor’s appointment and the day he told his son to listen to his advice or end up in jail. Back of the net. Jackpot repeat chance.  My Metrocard had turned into a one way ticket to subway eavesdropper’s heaven.

Sadly this highly interesting chap got off quite a few stops before mine and was replaced by some punk kid (huge Americanism) who seemed to enjoy poking me with his feet and bouncing a tennis ball around the carriage.

I alighted from the train at Bronx Park East as planned but the hot dog I was carrying earlier had been replaced by train boy’s tennis ball. So I threw it as far down the track as I could. That’ll teach him. Ok maybe I didn’t.

After about half an hour’s wandering around the local area I entered the park after which the train station was presumably named. Almost immediately I was approached by a group of Albanian and Polish guys who A) were a man short for a game of football against some Argentineans and B) wanted to know if I was Polish as well.

Although I had to disappoint them by revealing my nationality I was more than happy to join team Eastern Europe to take on the Argentinean All Stars, whose team included the oldest looking human being I’ve ever seen outside of a movie theatre. This guy looked like he had started chapping on death’s door 20+ years ago. But he has my utmost respect for turning out for team Argentina and I’m pleased to report that he made up for a lack of pace with some deft touches and incisive passes. I’m even more pleased to report that Eastern Bloc Utd. ran out 5-2 winners. During the customary post game handshake I asked my senior rival how old he was. He smiled and responded, “65, you know Lionel Messi, that’s my grandson!”

I’d be willing to bet that both of those statements were slightly……liberal.

That’ll do for now my faithful readers, thank you and goodnight.