Gabriella Espinal
Pershing, A BNY Mellon Company
1 Pershing Plaza, Jersey City, NJ 07399
Sona Shah
(201) 413­4034
March 27, 2015

Building and cultivating relationships is an integral part of any career strategy, whether you are a job seeker or a manager. When it comes to a workplace one must start with self knowledge, and that starts with personality traits. In a workplace like Pershing, to be successful one has to be ambitious, driven to succeed, approachable, workable with others, articulate, capable of expressing yourself in front of groups, cooperative,determined, self motivated, devoted, committed to the company’s success, diligent, hardworking, and enthusiastic. Many employees at Pershing may have all of these traits, however, they may not be experts in all of them. Like myself, for example, I posses diligence, determination, and ambition. When it comes to school and a working environment, I have always possessed these personality traits because that’s how I find myself to be successful in any given situation. However, I do need to improve on becoming more articulate. I also need to better express myself in front of others by opening myself up and willingly express myself more comfortably in front of a group.
From the time I started working at Pershing, my routine has always been to come in and distribute the mail to everyone on the floor. Once I settle down, I walk around my department and collect all the mail from the mail bins. Then, I would go back to my desk and sort them out so that it’s easier for me to distribute them. As I walked around my department, I noticed two additional personnel had been hired. They might have hired two additional people because two people have left to work somewhere else. In the Business Analysis department, the department I am in, there hasn’t been any downsizing due to the hiring of new employees. My department is required to advise clients on how to manage stocks. Due to the holidays, many workers were not busy, and were allowed to leave early and were able to bring food or snacks for everyone to enjoy before the holidays.

At my job site, there isn’t a specific month or day that the employees at the department are busy. Usually when a project is released or during a requirements phase, they are busy.
Releasing a project and being in the requirements phase can happen anytime of year, month, or week. My job site is always busy due to being the business part of any project. Moreover, they are extremely busy in the mornings until early afternoon of any day, week, or month. Once the stocks are closed, things start to simmer down.
As was previously stated, personality traits help to build career strategies as well as determining your work ethics. The personas that are most essential in order to be successful at a workplace are, easygoing, eloquent, flexible, focused, inquisitive, meticulous, and especially punctual. These traits are important for a workplace like Pershing, or in any working environment. Being a person who has great communication skills, capable of adapting to new situations, goal­orientated, excellent in gathering information, paying attention to small detail, and having good time management will allow you to be seen as a professional. Having these characteristics would be useful because you will be taken more seriously, you will build yourself a stronger reputation and you will open doors and attract more opportunities for yourself.
A W2 form is a statement that shows the amount of taxes withheld from your paycheck for the year and is used to to file your federal and state taxes. For the year of 2014, I received two W2 forms. One from Pershing, and one from Project Graduation, an internship I did during the summer. That year I did not file for taxes because I wanted to wait until I am making a larger amount of money. Although, if I file taxes for next year I will receive help from my mother since it will be my first time and I know I will need a person with experience to assist me through the process. Many of the full time employees in my department spend most of their time sitting behind a desk, on the phone, on the computer, or in a meeting. Their daily functions in this organization does not satisfy me. This internship made me realize that I can learn many different skills that I can apply anywhere in life. Although, I also noticed that I can’t sit behind a desk for almost 8 hours. I am the type of person who has to be physically active, and working with my hands. I can’t stay in one place for too long because I will start to feel weary. With that in mind, I know my expectations.
Subsequently, my performance is adequate. As my supervisor mentioned in my evaluation, I willingly undertake any task assigned to me. Thus, I enjoy helping my co­workers particularly because I know they need as much help as they can get and it gives me a positive feeling to know that I lended a helping hand. Whenever I get a task, I make sure I start right away and meet the requirements of what was asked for. On the other hand, I still need to improve my performance in being meticulous. I can enhance myself in that field by rereading things over to gain a better understanding of what I have to do. That would be beneficial for me.
To conclude, during my internship, I have spoken to many of the employees about my future and what interests me. I haven’t yet made my decision yet, but I am interested in being a veterinarian or a chemical engineer. I adore animals, I enjoy being around them, and they’re one of the main things that make me happy. I also like the idea of chemical engineering because I would enjoy being able to produce products. In that field I know that most of the time I would be hands on. I am also good at mathematics and chemistry, which is beneficial if I were to choose chemical engineering as my career. My plan is to attend New Jersey City University for two years and then transfer to Rutgers University to then start my major either in veterinary or in

chemical engineering. As it stands now, I will be going into college undecided, but once I choose my career path, I know I will be satisfied with my decision.