Illinibucks

To institute Illinibucks at our campus would take a lot of planning to consider all the possibilities of the system so it can run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  However, the possibilities are endless for these “illinibucks” from everything from the allocation to the uses of them.  Regarding the allocation of illinibucks to students, the university would have to decide if every student should get the same amount or should some students get more or less than others.  Class registration on campus could be totally changed if a student could use illinibucks to move up in the registration process.  If seniors no longer got an earlier date for registration but got more illinibucks than younger classes they would then have to budget their illinibucks and determine if spending a substantial amount of their allocation on early registration is a priority of yours.  Then the next question would be what is eligible to spend your illinibucks on?

Class registration is an obvious example of what illinibucks could be used on but there are a few other examples on campus I could see illinibucks being used.  One is at career fairs; this comes to mind because I had a personal experience at the business career fair this semester that illinibucks could have been very useful.  You wait in lines for hours at the business career fair just waiting to talk a company for a couple minutes to drop off your resume.  There are a ton of companies there that some kids do not have time to go talk to because they have been waiting in line for hours for other companies.  If you were allowed to use illinibucks to be admitted to an express line to talk to certain companies, then students would be able to network with more companies and not have to prioritize certain companies over others due to time restraints.  If illinibucks could be used for both registration and career fairs it would force students to budget out their illinibucks depending on their priorities.  If a senior had to register early for classes because they needed to get into a certain class they would have to spend a lot of their illinibucks on registration but then would not have a lot of illinibucks left for things such as the career fair.  This would cause controversy because a senior would not be able to go into the hypothetical illinibucks express lines at the career fair which would have a negative effect on their chances of talking to an abundant amount of companies for jobs post graduation.  Other uses for illinibucks would be to skip the line at the union bookstore, at dining halls, and even could be used to get better seats at university sporting events.

I would suggest that every student get their own illinibucks card almost like their own university debit card because then they could just simply swipe the card when they wish to spend the illinibucks.  Another thing the university would have to consider if students could purchase extra illinibucks but I think that would be a disastrous idea because then wealthier students could just purchase extra to have an advantage in certain scenarios on campus.  Ultimately, I believe illinibucks would not be a good idea on our campus because things such as registration already have a good system in place that allows for all students to register for classes in the most efficient way possible.

Most importantly, the price of the illinibuck would have to be set logically.  If the price is set too high students will be timid to use their illinibucks being fearful if they spend them at one place they will miss out on an opportunity elsewhere.  Vice a versa, if the price is set too low then the students will not value illinibucks because everyone will be able to skip all the “lines” that illinibucks allow you too.

Successful Team

This summer I had an internship with Ark Logistics which is a logistics and freight company run out of the northern Chicagoland suburbs.  I worked as a quality control specialist which required me to run a final inspection on all the product that was shipped out of our warehouse.  We had an office building connected to our warehouse and in the office building is where all the business and logistics happened.  I would take the final inspection paper work from the warehouse and enter it into a SEP database in the office building.  The database was a 4 step process to validate the truck coming to pick up the product, validate the product number with the order form, validate the batch number with the order form, and proper departure of the truck.  All of the product in our warehouse is food product so we had very strict FDA restrictions on the condition of the product and the cleanliness of the truck it was going in.  Even though I was responsible for the final inspection as quality control, it was a full team effort by the warehouse and office to complete all these steps.  The office would have to know reliable freight companies to contract to move our product while the warehouse had to professionally store the product and load it into the trucks.  Every member of the warehouse, regardless of position, was responsible to always be handling the product with care and keeping an eye out for anything that could tarnish it.  The whole warehouse team would hold each other accountable for this which gave me much more confidence in signing off on the final inspection paper work knowing that at every step of the process a team member was doing everything possible to ensure the quality of the product.  The company is only 16 years old and has grown so quickly due to the hard work that the team members put into the process which turned into great success for the company.  We are now the main contract for providing Wrigley Manufacturing Co. with the sweetener for all of their products and also have other contracts such as Colgate and Mondelez Global. 

I was essentially the middle man between the warehouse and the office.  I had to take the order forms from the office into the warehouse where I would give them to the warehouse manager.  The warehouse manager then would send a forklift driver to go find the product in the warehouse and bring it to the front for my final inspection before being loaded into the designated truck.  The warehouse manager was very strict in every step of the process from how to load the order to how the paperwork was filled out.  The manager was very hard on all the employees including myself because he expected excellence out of all of us.  Having this type of leader on the team was essential to the success of the company because his expectations and work ethic was reflected in everyone else’s work.  I would then take the final paperwork of the order back into the office where the office manager or myself would enter the paperwork into the SEP database.  The office manager was also very strict himself expecting zero mistakes in the paperwork and loading process.  Having two managers that expected nothing but the best out of their team is what I believe lead to the success of the company.  People in these leadership positions need to be stern and expect the best because if they do anything less than it will be reflected in the work of their colleagues.

In the textbook “Reframing Organizations” it described “Simple Hierarchy” which is similar to the one boss structure but a little more complex.  Simple Hierarchy is when a team talks to one individual and then that person talks to another leader.  To apply this to Ark Logistics I would see the warehouse as the team that all communicates to me and then I go and work with another leader (the office manager in this case).   However, another structure that fits our company is dual authority.  I say this because dual authority talks about the separation of teams with individual leaders and that can be seen by the separation of the office and warehouse.   With a warehouse manager and office manager our company also falls under the dual authority structure. 

I am a true believer in creating your own luck and I believe that is achieved through putting yourself in opportunistic situations.  Taking advantage of every opportunity that comes across you and not being afraid to fail at those opportunities is a key to being successful in life.  I try to seek out and participate in every opportunity that presents itself to me to explore different aspects of life.  Whether it be joining various clubs on campus to exploring the world through school run programs I try to dabble in all of them.  I am apart of the Sports business association on campus which has allowed me to meet and network with many different people in the business world and I am also apart of a social fraternity of campus which has allowed to me expand my social horizons beyond what I thought they could be.  I also participated in a study abroad program through school which let me explore a completely different culture in Europe for the first time.  Participating in these opportunities have increased by life experiences ten fold and I am very glad I participated in them. 

On the other hand, there has been plenty of opportunities that I have missed out on because I was not ambitious and neglected to participate in them.  One recent opportunity I did not take advantage of was the business career fair on campus.  The career fair provides a platform were many business students can network with and hand applications to big companies around the country that are looking for interns and potential employees our age.  This is a great opportunity provided by the school for all students to have face to face time with great corporations that could be a future career for a student.  However, I did not go to the career fair this year and in my junior year it is crucial to get a good internship this summer.  I kept downplaying how helpful the career fair was and kept procrastinating revising my resume so it would be ready for the fair.  On the day of the fair I realized I did not have a revised resume and had done no research on potential companies that would interest me.  Being this underprepared I chose not to go to the career fair thinking it would be of no benefit to me at this point.  I regret not taking advantage of this opportunity because now all of my peers that went to the fair are setting up interviews, in personal contact with recruiters, and had a great networking experience at the fair which I was unable to have due to my own fault. 

In this situation I missed two opportunities: being under prepared and not going to the fair at all.  Overall, I extremely regret procrastinating building my resume so it would be prepared to present to potential companies I would like to work for.  There was plenty of resume workshops on campus that could have helped me but I just never committed to any of them.  I also did not research any of the companies that are there which is essential to looking prepared to these companies while talking to them face to face.  Lastly, not going to the career fair at all because I felt too unprepared was a mistake as well.  I could have still gone and at least began to network with these companies and could have gotten contacts and good insight for future career fairs.  This was an opportunity I missed out on and could effect me in the future but it was also a good learning experience to never pass up on any opportunity whether its small of large.