Yes, it has been entirely too long since I've been on here, however, you've got to understand how crazy things have been! Let's see, where do I start. Well, after finishing up graduation and my goodbyes, I packed up and headed for Florida where I would spend about two weeks closing up loose ends before my big move to Detroit. This, my friends, is where it gets crazy...
Just three or four days before I was set to move up to Detroit to work for Ford Motor Company in Manufacturing Finance, I got the call that I would still be in the same department, but NOT in Detroit...That's right, I was relocated to Chicago just days before the move and had NO idea where to go, where to live, what was happening or how I was going to pull this one off. Luckily, with an outstanding support group of family, friends, professors and my piers I managed to get in the right direction. Now, don't' get me wrong, I love love love the idea of living in Chicago and have always wanted to end up here some day so I am extremely blessed, but never thought it would be my first assignment.
Well, as things progressed I found some good leads, did the final packing in Florida and headed off for Chicago. First stopping in Hilton Head to stay with my roommate's family then heading to Charlotte to see everyone one last time, I proceeded to pickup mom in Charlotte and continue the 20 something hour drive to Chi Town. Quite the journey it was and eventually late on a Thursday night we landed in downtown Chicago just praying we could find a hotel that had some vacancy. Three nights in the hotel, a day and a half of apartment searches and plenty of getting lost eventually led to signing a lease on Saturday.
So here I am, just a southern boy in a big city finding my way around and meeting new people every day. I started work on Monday and have started to get the hang of things around here. I do work at the Chicago Assembly Plant where we start production very very soon on the three cars that will be VERY important for Ford in the coming years. The Taurus and Taurus SHO along with the Lincoln MKS are all ours and let me tell you, they look GOOD! Check 'em out :) I would like to provide a disclaimer though that I don't actually build the cars at the plant, but sit up in the controllers office with a few others running some of the numbers for the production at the plant. It's quite the process once you start looking at it all on very specific levels. I wanted to learn the business from the ground up and I don't think I could find a better opportunity to do that than at an assembly plant. It is literally a dream come true for a fresh college grad.
So, I guess to sum it all up I could put it like this. Southern boy living in a swanky one bedroom place at the heart of America's third largest city armed with a degree, a job and the knowledge to take corporate America by storm. At the end of the day, I'm still just livin' the dream :)
I hope your summers are going well and semesters finished up fine for you all, I will blog a few more times before my blogging days for Queens are over, but until then take care and shoot me a message if you have any questions. My new e-mail is tyler.rauch@gmail.com . Thanks!
