Welcome

PayPal is an interesting place to work, much different from the New York Times Co. The dress code is jeans and a nice shirt/sweater etc. I think they call it office casual.

The buildings on both the eBay and PayPal campuses have themes. I am in the music building so the conference rooms on each of the floors are named after composers and rock bands. We have our weekly staff meeting in a room called Metallica.

The lobby of building I work in is decorated with all sorts of random things like lunch boxes, pez dispensers, board games and other random things. One of the other buildings is fashion themed. That building has skirts, belts and shoes on the walls. The conference rooms have different designer themes. The funniest conference room was the Brooks Brothers room which has full suits on the wall.

On each of the floors there is a different type of snack food that is free for the taking. The top floor is cereal and milk, the second floor is Chex mix, pretzels and trail mix, the first floor is fruit. All of the floors have free soda, water and juice. They also all have espresso machines on each floor. The top floor has a coffee machine that dispenses different kinds of flavored coffees as well as hot chocolate also for free.

We don't get free lunch like Google but the eBay cafe has pretty good food and it is average price for restaurants nearby.

I have been tossed around a bit with desks. They have someone new starting tomorrow so they took the first desk I was working at to give to him. It makes sense since he is a full time person. So I am temporarily sitting in another desk until I move with the risk group that I am working with right now.

They are apparently going to move all of the UI teams into the new building when it is finished early next year. That is why they are getting pushed around a bit right now.

Last Friday was big eBay Co. summer festival on the soccer fields at the PayPal campus. They had a live band, lots of food and games. They played the eBay song by Weird Al that I hadn't heard before. It was funny. Here is a video that someone made of it. The second photo of a building with the eBay sign in front is the one I work in.

The first few days in San Jose have been pretty good. Sunday I went to San Fransisco using public transportation. It took me about 2 hours. I started out at my apartment getting on a bus, then a light rail train, then the CalTrain. I was supposed to get on another bus after I got off the CalTrain but I turned the wrong way out of the station and missed it. I took a cab from there to the apartment I was going to look at.

The apartment ended up not being what I wanted so I am still looking for a place. I have a few appointments set up on Saturday and I am hoping to have something locked in by the end of the weekend.

Monday morning I attempted to take a series of buses to work but got on the wrong one so I had to turn around and go back to the apartment where I caught a cab to work.

I met a a few of my fellow interns who were starting that day. I was also told that there was a shuttle from the apartments where I am staying now to work everyday. They neglected to tell me that when I checked in.

After getting my badge one of the other interns and I went to the PayPal campus which is about 10 minutes by car away from the eBay campus.

My boss met me in the lobby and took me to my desk. I have my own cube and found a brand new laptop and docking station at my desk.

I am working with the global platform and risk teams. I will be doing six weeks in each of the departments. From what I have been able to gather over the last few days. Global platforms works PayPal sites in other parts of the world. Risk works with Phishing, Spoof, Fraud and helps develop things for the customer service representatives in another office.

I have a mentor from each area that is going to help me with my projects for the summer.

Today they told me what projects I will be working on this summer. I have a few long term and a few short term projects this summer.

I am really excited about the things I will be working on.