MasterControl

I know it seems like it was forever ago, but I thought I should post something about the internship I had this past summer. I was hired by MasterControl, Inc. as a software engineer to work on their document control software. Now I know what you are thinking... "What kind of a name is MasterControl?" I was thinking the same thing when I applied for a job. It just sounded like some big, robotic machine that would walk around and say "I am MasterControl" over and over again in a big robotic voice. I imagined that it would probably look something like this:


Anyways, it turned out that MasterControl was a lot more than just that, but unfortunately I am signed to secrecy about what exactly it was that we worked on while employed there. But we had a whole lot of fun and I learned that I never want to test software for bugs! They had us work in a couple of different departments and everyone's least favorite was verification. That department is in charge of making sure the fix that a programmer made actually fixed the problem and didn't make new problems. It was pretty boring those 2 weeks!

There were 5 interns that were hired on for the summer, but only 4 ended up showing up on the first day and we all made it through the entire summer. Here is a picture of us interns. My, don't we all look so happy?

From left to right we have Chris Derrick, Jonathan Mitchell, Brandon Johnson, and me!

INTERN BIOS
Chris Derrick: Chris is a student from the University of Utah. He and I didn't seem to get along very well from the start, but it probably had something to do with the fact that Brandon and I liked to pull pranks on him all the time. Some of my favorite ones include:
-Installing a program on his computer that allowed us to send custom error alerts to his computer and eventually ended up convincing him that his computer hated him.
-Causing his computer to shutdown anytime that he tried to open Internet Explorer.
Ahhh. Those were some good times.

Jonathan Mitchell: Jon (Yes its Jon, not John. Get it right!) is a student from Brigham Young University and is originally from Oregon. Jon liked to eat Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its and got me hooked on them over the summer. I didn't really get to know Jon very well over the summer as he spent most of his lunches playing video games, playing with his rubik's cube, or talking to his wife on the phone.

Brandon Johnson: Brandon is a fellow student from Utah State University and was probably the best part of MasterControl for me. Everyday I looked forward to hearing his sassy remarks and together we'd think of new ways to trick Chris into thinking his computer was possessed.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES
MasterControl had a lot of fun activities during the summer. Unfortunately (fortunately, really) I traveled a lot this summer so I ended up missing some of the events, but here are some highlights on what I was able to do this summer.


The MasterControl Summer Carnival - This was a family event where everyone from the company came and we had food and a water fight and such. My mom and X were the only family that wanted to come with me, but we still had fun (sorta). Probably the best part of the whole thing was the Christmas-colored t-shirts we now have and enjoy working out in. Thanks MasterControl! [Robotic Response: "You are welcome"]


Ping-Pong - MasterControl had a ping-pong table in their conference room, and us interns would take a break about once a week and go play ping-pong for 30 minutes or so to keep us sane. I won't lie and tell you that the occurence of these ping-pong breaks didn't increase as the end of summer neared.


"Dart-Man" - Whenever MasterControl hires a new employee they introduce them at the next company meeting and play a game where the employee can win some cash. Usually they play "2 truths and a lie" and for each person you fool you get $1, but for our meeting when we were introduced they decided to try a new game. Each intern was given 3 "Dart-man", which essentially are sticky darts shaped like little men, and we had to throw them at a wall with different prizes associated with different targets. Some of the prizes included Dinner for 2 at the steakhouse, an old company laptop, gift certificates, and such, but the big prize was a small target (about the size of a small sandwich plate) and it was worth $200! There was also a large picture of a $1 bill and if you hit that with your dart-man then all of the employees each received $1. Everyone who went before me all tried for the $200, and when it was my turn the boss said that he wanted to make things a little more tricky and decided to put the $200 target on top of the $1 target, so if you missed you would end up wasting your chance on the $1 prize. Here is a little diagram of what I am talking about:



<= This is what it looked like before my turn

This is what it looked like on my turn =>

Needless to say I wasn't thrilled that I suddenly felt like all chances for the $200 prize had gone down the drain. So my first two throws I tried in vain to get one of the other prizes, but on my third try I figured I had nothing to lose and so I might as well try for the $200, and if I miss everyone else gets a buck and they'll be happy. So I carefully took aim and made the throw. The dart-man went straight into the $200 target! I was thrilled and everyone was cheering for me. I ended up getting 200 $1 bills because they had so many of them just in case they needed to do a big payout. I thought that it would be funny to roll around in the money like Scrooge McDuck, but I decided not too cause I didn't want to smell like cash.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at MasterControl. I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and felt like I added some value to myself as an employee. The major language I learned at MasterControl is called ColdFusion and having some experience in that helped me get a job up here in Logan so I am definitely happy about that. Look for a post in the future about my new job!