I love my job!

Now honestly how often do you hear people say that?

But right now I truly do love my job.

I know that I mentioned that I had gotten this job but I don't remember how much I said about it, so forgive me if this is repeat info.

I am working with a professor in the Hospitality school, Bonnie Knutson, who is doing research. I am her research assistant. I met with her at the beginning of the year and we talked about my interest in meeting and event planning. She decided to start me off working on a project called "Michigan Meetings" the goal is to determine why people are not holding meeting and conventions in Michigan, to determine how to attract people from in-state and out-of-state to hold meetings in Michigan. Bonnie is working on this project with another professor Jeff Beck. So they had me create a customer satisfaction profile to determine how to best measure customer satisfaction.

I began my work by meeting with a librarian who told me the best resources to use for my type of research and then I began reading a million articles on customer satisfaction and the new theory of customer delight, which is that customers who are satisfied are less likely to be loyal to a business than customers who are delighted by their experience. Thus it is best to measure customer delight to obtain customer loyalty.

So, on Wednesday I felt like I had done as much research on that topic as i could without making me pullout my hair... so I scheduled this meeting and Bonnie and Jeff and I decided we could all meet at Starbucks at 11 on Wednesday. So it was Monday and I was determining the best way to show all the information I had compiled. So...I made a PowerPoint. The PowerPoint was not very long, but it showed the most important parts of my research.

I got to Starbucks a bit early so I set up my computer and opened up my PowerPoint. Bonnie got there next and we chatted for a few minutes. Then we decided that we would go through the presentation twice. Once just for Bonnie and then i would do it again once Jeff arrived. I went through the PowerPoint feeling a bit nervous, I wasn't sure if what I came up with was good enough. Bonnie asked me a few questions throughout my PowerPoint all of which I could answer. She was thrilled. She told me that the work I had done was so much of a help and that it saved them so much time, and Jeff would be thrilled. Then Jeff came in, as if on cue and so he got a drink and then I went over my PowerPoint again.

They were so interested in my ideas and all that i had found out. Jeff said that he had had 'Broad Scholar Students' (that is the organization that I am in that has freshman and sophomore research assistants) before, but they had never done as much work the whole year as I had accomplished so far.

I was thrilled. I could not stop smiling. I had been apprehensive about my work, and I was told that it was exemplary. We discussed where we could go next with my work, what the next step would be. After discussing that Bonnie turned to Jeff and said "I think I found your new teaching assistant". Jeff teaches the Meeting and Event Planning class. It would be amazing to be his T.A. so I've arranged my schedule so I can enter the Hospitality school after my first semester of my sophomore year. That way I could take that class during spring of my sophomore year...and by doing that I can be a potential T.A. my junior year.

Bonnie and Jeff both said I'm not allowed to graduate because they love my research so I think that I'm pretty much going to be granted the T.A. position as long as I do well in the class and continue doing good research.

I was thrilled about this. So Wednesday was pretty much the greatest day ever, because I had coffee so I was wide awake and I had that meeting. I love my life sometimes.

"Don't think that I'm naive
Because even a person who's smart
Can listen to their heart"