Day 5

Upon arriving to work, I was promptly taken downstairs to the customer service department of DART. I was introduced to a gentleman by the name of Mr. Trinidad, who was the supervisor over the entire customer service crew. Mr. Trinidad then took me to meet Mrs. Little who was a customer service representative. I sat with her as she explained how to work the computer system to find routes and stops for passengers that called in and in need of help finding their way around the city using DART. After our brief training, I was given full responsibility of the job. She gave me a headset and sat behind me to make sure I was using the computer correctly and giving accurate information when the customers called in.
After answering a few calls, I was taken into the office of Mrs. Cynthia Brooks who was the Senior Manager of that department. Mrs. Brooks told me how much I have been raved about as being an excellent addition to the team.  She mentioned that there were 10 people out of 30 who worked in that department that held the honor as being a member of "The Dream Team".
Shortly after our meeting I returned to the floor to do some more customer service work. Mrs. Brooks came  out of her office and got everyone's attention, she introduced me to the entire customer service staff and gave me a coveted spot on "The Dream Team". It was an honor to be a part of their special team. I received a dream team bag and other goodies. They had a professional photographer come out and take my picture with the other 10 members of "The Dream Team" After the big announcement I returned to work for an additional 30minutes which was the end of my day. I went to lunch with my grandmother and rode the bus back home.
This internship has taught me many things, from learning great customer service tactics, how important it is to being on time for work and putting your heart and soul in whatever you do, teamwork, to dealing with the trials of working with children, more importantly I have learned a life lesson I will never forget.

Day 4

To start the day off, I sat through a meeting with Ms. Lennon and about nine other colleagues of hers. The topic of discussion was finding a solution to making the walk form the trolley to the underground train, shorter. This is quite a unique situation for me because just two days ago, I was out at City Hall figuring out how much time the prolonged walk was going to take, and now I am sitting in a board meeting with the head supervisors at DART, listening to them discuss ways to shorten that walk. My eyes were now fully opened to the fact that everyone in DART, no matter what field they work in, works in collaboration with each other to reach on goal: Transportation for now and the future that is preferred by the people. After leaving the meeting, I found a lady named Tracy who put me to do some things for her. I made copies, looked up fax numbers for schools, faxed documents to those schools, and stuffed DART bags full of general information about DART. The bags are used by people like Mr. Miguel, whom I shadowed on the first day, to give to the students and teachers after the field trips. The next thing I did was talked to a DART Police Officer. He informed me of exactly how much jurisdiction they have out on the streets and he also talked with me about how to become an officer, how much they get paid, as well as some advice on life in general. Tomorrow I am suppose to be working in the Customer Service department of DART and I have been informed that it can get chaotic with the amounts and types of complaints that some of the customers have.

Day 3

My third day on the job, I was taken out to Rail Operations where I got to see how the carts went through maintenance, repair, and cleaning. I met a man named Mr. Woods who I was to be shadowing for today and he tried to show me as much as he possibly could in the time frame that I had with him. The first thing we did was we walked around the building to meet the different people that worked in collaboration to form DART's Rail Operations. I was then taken out to the train yard where I saw trains hoisted up into the air being worked on. I also saw things like a "train wash", a trueing machine, and a train parts warehouse that held all of the necessary parts needed to repair the trains. Directly after this, Mr. Woods took me to a meeting where he and his colleagues discussed the many different problems that DART experiences daily, and the variety of ways in which those things could be fixed. Once this meeting was over we headed over to lunch for about an hour and then headed back to work. When we got back, Mr. Woods took me to a room that held a big electronic board, which had all of the train lines running on it, and it showed where exactly the trains were and how fast they were moving from station to station. Once we left this room, I was escorted back out to the train yard where I got a chance to board one of the trains that still needed to be repaired. We were very far from the actual mechanic shop and I was allowed to go into the cabin of the train and sit down in the conductor's seat. I was very surprised when I was given the opportunity to start up the train and drive it forwards for about one hundred yards. This was an experience that not many people get and it really gave me an insight on what goes on behind the wall's of DART's headquarters. It helped me to see that there is more to DART than riding trains and buses from one location to another. My eyes were really opened to the many different things that DART has to offer for people of all ages and I look forward to seeing what's in store for me tomorrow.

Day 2

The first task I had on my second day of working for DART was to answer the phones for one of the employees who was out at the time, running errands. Although I didn't get a chance to answer the phone, due to a lack of calls, I was briefly moved to a different part of the building were I shadowed the Planning Project Manager for the rest of the day. His name was John Quinne and he was in charge of projects such as the managing of existing and future dart transit routes. Today's job consisted of leaving the office and physically going down to City Hall to plan out the time it should take for people to walk from the trolly, over the freeway's overpass, instead of underneath the highway, to reach the other side of the street where the underground train tunnel exists. Before we got a chance to leave, a nice lady named Ms. Angie, joined us to help Mr. Quinne with the details along the way. The three of us rode the DART train to City Hall where we started our calculations. I used the stop watch on my phone to measure the amount of time it would take us to walk from the trolly, over the highway overpass, and down to the train tunnel. It took around eleven minutes to do this instead of the normal two, and this was due to the two broken traffic signals needed to walk across the overpass, as well as the lack of sidewalk needed to reach the cross walk. The reason for us to carry this project out is because in a couple of weeks, there will be construction taking place to renovate the stairs and elevators, underground where the trains run. After our project was finished, we rode the train back to the DART headquarters and ate lunch. The days to come will all be different for me because the General Manager, Mr. Victor Burke, whom i met today along with his assistant Becky, wants me to have a look into as many different areas of DART as possible. He wants me to do this because there is not just one job that helps DART to run as a transportation company. There are many jobs that intertwine themselves to create one big finished project, which is DART.

Day 1

My first day at DART was filled with fun from the start. After reporting for duty at 9am, I was taken in by a nice young lady by the name of Bridgette Donaldson, who introduced me to the people I am to be working with over the course of the week. I met a woman named Ms. Lennon who is the supervisor over the majority of the people I'm going to be working with and I also met a man named Miguel. Today, I was placed with Mr. Miguel and shadowed him through his whole day's agenda. The first thing we did was sat down in his office where he gave me the plan of action for today. We planned to go to Amelia Earhart Elementary school and take a couple of third grade classes on a field trip. We had to make sure we had a full map with the times that we planned to be at each stop along the way. The driver of the bus was also given a copy just like the one that Mr. Miguel had so that he knew what was going on at all times and never felt left out. Before we could leave the office, we had to sign out and pack some materials for the kids to have after their trip was over. Mr. Miguel and I went to pick the students up from the school but before we left, we had to give them a fifteen minute talk about DART's safety rules and regulations. After this was over, we took them on the bus to University Park TRE station. From there we took the train to Union Station where we then stopped for a prolonged bathroom break. Once everyone relieved themselves, we were picked up by the same bus and taken to the park a few streets down, in the middle of down town Dallas. We ate lunch until 12 before we took the kids back to their school. They loved every second of it and were very sad to leave. We then headed back to the office were Mr. Miguel showed me how to navigate my way through the confusing cubical and elevators, before signing back in and bidding me farewell until tomorrow. I look forward to tomorrow's events because I plan on meeting the General Manager, Victor Burke and his secretary Betty, who I will thank for making this experience possible for me. My schedule is different each day because the workers want to give me a chance to see the different departments that DART has to offer so I do not know what tomorrow has in store.