22 January 2008

Today was my first day of work. I have to say, it was such a great feeling to be there... in a office... with a lot of people that are closer to my age!

Getting re-acclimated to working was a bit tough. The type of work they gave me was very tough, actually. But it was good, since it's stuff that I normally really like to do. The first thing they gave me to do was to analyze data and determine where the errors were. What had happened was this: a report of the forecasted expenses was sent to the US. The US changed the report to their format and sent it back to the UK. The numbers in the US report differed from the original UK report and nobody was able to determine why. So, I made a lovely spreadsheet showing the differences in the two and was able to come up with some of the solutions, but there were others that I just couldn't figure out. They were suppose to call the folks in the US to figure out the differences.

The next project was a bit more difficult. Blackbaud has a ton of financial reports that go out regularly. The reports are boring and have an overabundance of information on them. What they wanted for me to do was to make it look pretty and easier for the Directors to read. This had me a bit perplexed, since the data was so extravagant. I had to think to myself, "If I was a Director, which information would I want to see?" It took me a while to come to the conclusion. I finally came up with some sort of solution and that was to put all high-level detail for each sector on their own "dashboard", so to speak. So, I made a graph that illustrated the total "bookings" (or sales) showing this months actuals vs. budgeted vs. last years actuals... and then I put a high-level chart depicting the basics - revenue, expenses, etc. We're scheduled to go over this report next week, since the big boss has loads of changes he wants to make on the report anyway. I was so relieved to hear about the requested changes. It was definitely something that I wanted to speak with each Director about... since they are my customers in this regards. I think it would be so much better to get their perspective on what information they look at when they normally receive the report, since we know that it can't be all of it. They simply don't have that kind of time.

Anyway, this picture is of the Waterloo Station. The office is right around the corner from here... and when I go to work, this is the station I arrive at. I really like it! It's beautiful inside. Has lots of shops and cafes. :)