Rafayele O’Banner

Overall I have had a very exciting and intriguing work experience here at SCANA. I have worked before, but this time was really different. This time my thoughts and inputs really mattered. Nobody second guessed my decisions, nor was there anybody standing over my shoulder stressing me out constantly. The hardest transition I had to make was adjusting to eight hour workdays and not using sir or ma’am. I had to realize that my supervisors are now my peers due to the rapid change in the workforce age.

I brought a lot of technical book knowledge to my position at SCANA, but very little hands-on-experience. I have been in college for a few years and have only read about doing things like changing toners without really changing one. Obtaining the book knowledge is stressed constantly throughout our courses but providing the actual experience is often overlooked. I learned to create pivot tables, charts, and graphs, but I think the biggest experience I will take from this is how to conduct myself in a business environment. From the impromptu social lunches, elevator and car small talk, to what to actually do in my office downtime are the things that have added to this experience. While enduring those hour and fifteen minute classes I never realized how much the materials being presented actually meant.

I will never forget the materials learned in my business law, Excel, Access, Business Communications, and Internship Prep courses. Each of these courses really impacted how I performed and carried myself around my co-workers and how I completed each task that was presented to me. I loved being featured in Outlook, a SCANA publication. It just proves that always being at the top of your game can lead to the opening of so many doors of opportunities. My biggest ‘AH HAH’ moment came when I was asked by fellow co-workers to assist them with tasks in Excel and other software programs that I had previously conquered. My internship as an auditor fits perfectly with my long term career goal of becoming a clinical administrator. As an auditor I was able to provide constructive criticism by analyzing different situations and data. Gaining that experience will assist me in conquering my short term goal of becoming a data analyst.