The first three days weren't all that bad to be perfectly honest. It started off with a personal development course (Desarrollo Potencial Personal). In this course, our teacher, Jesus, taught us about work/life/family balance, motivation, being a leader, and the necessities pyramid, among other things. It was a very personal course (hence the name). Throughout the three days we did several activities that made you think about your life; past, present, and future. We would brake off into small groups to discuss different aspects of our lives with our other co-workers and reflect. We discussed the importance of personal and family growth, and making sure we made enough time for both. I know this is probably true for a lot of you, but we spend most of our time and energy at work. This is because it provides us with our basic physiological needs; food, shelter, clothing, etc. Beyond work however, we need to make sure we take care of our psychological and spiritual needs as well. I learned about this stuff in my freshman Psychology class. It was interesting to re-visit it to see where I am at in life. One day for class we watched "Good Will Hunting" (which is a great movie btw. If you have never seen it I highly recommend doing so) and another day watched "Patch Adams". We discussed these movies and how they applied to the lecture. Over all I enjoyed the DPP course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Sunday was a free day so a bunch of us went back to the Pyramids in Teotihuacan. They were just as amazing the second time around. It is still tough to beleive that they built those giant structures with no modern technology. Touche my Aztecan friends *soft golf clap*!!
And the rest made it.
Monday the real hard part started. From 8am to 6pm we were
in the same room listening to presenter after presenter after
presenter. We had people come in and chat with us about everything from
the different distribution channels to the responsibilities of a
divisional to Trade Marketing, and everything in between. They were
loooooonnnnnnggggg days. To top it off, we had to complete a Sales
Simulator and take a test in order to pass the course. I was very
stressed out to say the least. Not that passing this course would make
or break me for my job, but it is a personal pride thing. I want to do
my best in everything I do and this was no exception. On Wednesday we were presented with the sales simulator. The task is to simulate an entire year of sales, adjusting your orders, space, and man power each week. In the end, you want your final sales above your forecasted goal. Some weeks will pop up with information that you have a sale or that some of your vendors quit and you have to adjust accordingly. This represented 40% of our grade. The top 5 people got full points, the next 5 for two points off, next 5 got four off, and so on. So we started this at 5pm on Wednesday and had to finish it before mid-night. I set off and got the hang of it pretty quick. I felt I was doing pretty well based on how others were doing around me. Around 9pm I completed the entire year. I wanted to make sure I had completed it correctly, so I asked the course organizer what to do next. He told me I had to hit the simulate button once more, so I did....... this deleted the entire years data I had just spent 4 hours generating and started me back at week one. I was beside myself. I didn't even know what to do. The instructor told me to go grab some food and a drink and to start over. I seriously haven't been that mad in a long time. I went back to my room to calm myself down for a bit. Eventually I calmed down and started back at it. Joe wanted to re-do his because his first go round didn't end so well. We linked up, got some dinner, and finally finishing the simulator around 1am. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because I did better than my first run and ended coming in second. The top three performers all came from BBU associates; Joe was first, following in close second was me, then Jose. We dominated the rest of the class. It was a pretty proud moment, especially for how upset I was.
I was not out of the clear yet. We still had a test coming up on Friday that I was pretty worried about. All the information came out of an instruction book that we had not covered at all. It was our job to go through the book on our own time. Needless to say the entire book is in Spanish which makes learning the material twice as hard. Not only do I have to learn the content of the book, but I have to translate a lot of it, and memorize the answers in Spanish. I went through the entire 90 page book and took my notes. Joe and I linked up once more for a serious study session. We went through all our notes, put acronyms to the information and quizzed each other till about mid-night. When we were handed the test the next day, we both looked at it, and agreed that we were going to kill it. Coincidentally, we both scored 55/65 (we didn't cheat, we both got different questions wrong). In the end, I passed the class with a 93% which was in the top 3!! I was super pumped!! I had worried and stressed myself out so much for that course. All the hard work paid off and the outcome was well worth it!!
Diploma time with my BBU homies!! Holla!!
It is always kind of sad at the end of a course like this to have to say your good byes. Over the course of a week and half you get to know so many new people and share an experience with them. Then, all of a sudden, it's over. Beyond the grade and diploma, the most important part for me is meeting new people. I hope someday we will be able to meet up again.
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