Jaclyn, Cardiff - Week 8

Week 8 in Cardiff...I can't believe two months have gone by already!

Last week, the weather was lovely. Typically, Cardiff is very rainy and rather chilly for a typical summer in Chicago/Michigan. But last week was BEAUTIFUL. I decided to take my lunch and my book outside on Monday and decided to enjoy my lunch against Cardiff Castle. Still incredible to me that I ate lunch leaning against a castle!!




Panoramic view from where I had lunch (against Cardiff Castle)

 

Wednesday of last week, I worked in Swansea. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but

Swansea is about an hour West of Cardiff and is the second of three locations Admiral occupies in South Wales (the other is Newport). The Swansea office was so nice! The Recruitment department is on the second floor of the Swansea office (as opposed to the 4th floor here in Cardiff) and the view is incredible!! You can see the hills and all the houses and it's beautiful. Currently, my view in Cardiff is of a brick wall. Soooo lush....

Anyway, since it was Amy's first week working in Swansea (after transferring offices), we had a buffet in her honor! There were mini burgers, small sandwiches, chocolate croissants, lots of crisps (chips) and, of course, homemade Welsh cakes (see right photo)!! I got the recipe from the girl who made them. They were delicious and I'm definitely going to be making them when I'm back in the States...

While in the Swansea office, I worked on my cultural video project with Amy, conducted a few telephone interviews, and was given the task of reference chasing! I'll explain: when new hires start, they're on a probationary period for six months; at the start of the six months they give us the names, phone numbers, and addresses of two references who we then email as a reference request; if their references don't respond by the month that the new starters are set to pass probation, we have to call their references and chase the person we're expecting a reference from. This means calling around to find them, leaving voicemails if they don't respond, emailing reference requests, and, unfortunately, dealing with people who think you're wasting their time. I don't blame them...giving a reference for an employee that left them, for whatever the reason. On the other hand, I give our Sales people a LOT of credit for the resilience they must need and use daily!

Walking to the train from the Swansea office, you have to cross a bridge. And even though the weather wasn't stunning, I thought the view was brilliant. It was very touristy of me, but I had to snap some pictures! I also took some pictures around the town as I made my way to the train.

 

Swansea Castle



The second half of the week flew by. I was back in Cardiff for the rest of the week. On Thursday, I had the final two companies come in and present their testing options to us, so I had a busy day. It definitely helped that we got free donuts!! (Doesn't this company sound amazing??)

Explanation of the free donuts: there's something special we have called the Ministry of Fun (MOF, for short), where different mini challenges are emailed out randomly. They are usually small tasks but are always fun and always end in some sort of treat! This is just one of the things Admiral likes to do to show their staff that they are appreciated and that enjoying yourself at work is important, too!

Thursday, we got an email that a picture of an ice cream cone was hidden somewhere on each floor and whoever found it would receive a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and their name in a drawing to win another prize. We spent about 10 minutes looking for the ice cream cone and were about to give up and go back to work when Wendy, the amazing liaison between Admiral and UMich for this internship program, looked up and found it on a part of the wall!

Needless to say, we got free donuts...!!!



My Fourth of July breakfast!



Friday, obviously, was the Fourth of July!! I was wearing my red, white, and blue, of course! To add to this special day, one of my coworkers forwarded me an email from Krispy Kreme that said if you present your US Passport to any Krispy Kreme store or sing the US National Anthem, you get a free Krispy Kreme donut! Naturally, I went to Krispy Kreme and got my free donut! (So many free donuts!)

My boss also offered to pay for McDonalds breakfast for everyone! So I started my Fourth of July out with a free donut and a free McDonalds hashbrown! So spoiled :)

 

Self-ordering machine at
McDonalds!



And what would the Fourth of July be without s'mores?? I brought the ingredients to work again and had s'mores round 2 with my Welsh co-workers! Just like last time, everybody enjoyed them!

Amy and I took the afternoon off and had a half-day on Friday. We got a really delicious lunch at a pub, went shopping for a bit, and then got picked up by one of our friends, who was hosting a Fourth of July party in my honour!! The party was so cute! They hung an American flag up, made an American flag cake, and got red solo cups because they thought that would be rather American.


 

 

Gary threw me over his shoulder and held me
upside down!



They bought so much food for the night - it was way more than the 5 of us could eat. Admittedly, I taught them a few drinking games. (Drinking games aren't common in the UK...many of them had never heard of beer pong before.) We had lots of fun, played upbeat music, it was a great time! At one point in the night, we were all giving each other piggy back rides and I found myself being carried upside down by Gary (used to work in Recruitment with me and Amy but got a new job within Admiral). It was an unforgettable evening. We even got some sticks from the back and made traditional s'mores. I was so honoured that they did all that for me :)



The exciting part of my weekend ended with a traditional Welsh breakfast at a pub. Typically, the egg is fried, but I'm not big into fried eggs, so I asked for mine to be scrambled :)

A traditional breakfast (see photo below) consists of toast, a fried egg, bacon, sausage, beans, hashbrowns, and tomato.

It was amazing -- the perfect meal to follow the Fourth of July!

It's crazy to think that I only have one and a half more weeks here... I haven't even left yet and I already miss it. Can't imagine how I'll feel when I actually go home - definitely going to be bittersweet.