5 things that I have to do for work:
- pull SQL database tables into Excel spreadsheets
- aggregate the data into summary metrics
- write emails to people I am not familiar with, telling them to follow up on work that I am not familiar with
- take minutes for various team meetings
- program macros to do most of the above at the touch of a button (I added this one)
So far the work term has been going well. I told myself I wanted a break from programming and that I wanted an easier term for this coop placement, and I suppose that is exactly what I am getting. I am still adjusting to the change in level of brain power needed to do most of these tasks (read: low) by using my spare cycles to figure out shortcuts. My intention is to get all the mundane processes of work out of the way and done super-efficiently with as many automated steps as possible (sort of like what I had to figure out at OpenText) so that I have lots of time leftover to get my hands dirty with other, more interesting facets of the project.
I’m not really sure how the previous coop could take a full day to do all these easy peasy tasks, but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have macros/any intention of doing things quickly AND accurately (yes, it was a royal pain “learning” from someone like that).