Greensboro Visit

This past Friday was my first official day as an intern in the wonderfully intriguing world that is Polo Ralph Lauren. We met at the Eastern Distribution Center (DC) that is located in Greensboro, NC. Needless to say, I was extremely excited but nervous all at the same time. Retail was a completely new arena for me as a supply chain nerd from NC State. At least I will be surrounded with fellow students from the College of Textiles today.

We started out with presentations and breakfast in one of the conference rooms upstairs. Of course we had a company overview; I was surprised how much new information I learned during this even with my extensive research before my interview and after I got the position. Some of the other presentations that we were privileged to consisted of were a supply chain presentation and video, Mark was literally a human encyclopedia on everything that concerns Polo, and we also had some very interesting in depth introductions.

After the presentations and such we went back downstairs and ate lunch in the bistro, behind the cafeteria at the DC. And I must say that maybe I'm just used to cafeteria food not being the greatest looking foods (thank you fountain dining hall) but the food we had for lunch looked and tasted incredible. I remember someone asking at some point if the employees there ate like that everyday and I believe Rusty said yes. At that very moment, I knew that this was the place for me. Its like the Polo chefs knew that food was the quickest was to my heart - food.

Next was the plant tour. Unfortunately we only had time for a quick 35-45 minute tour so our tour of the humongous facility was very brief. On the tour we saw the embroidery department (where two of the interns will be spending most of their time this summer), the loading and unloading areas (that looked a lot like what I saw on a UPS tour this past year), the garment on hanger section (GOH- here we saw some ridiculously priced black label items), the storage areas ("rabbits" and "cherry pickers" were abundant here), and finally we saw that sorting areas.

We took another plant tour after the Greensboro DC tour. We all caravaned to High Point to tour the DC (I believe they referred to this location as the "dot com DC"). Everything that is ordered from Polo.com comes through this store. The layout and concept of this location was very similar to that of the Greensboro DC's. One of the largest differences was the size and purpose of the embroidery section, the sorting section, and the packaging area. At this location items are sent directly to the end consumer, instead of actual shops, so here the merchandise is sent out in smaller and more visually friendly boxes or gift boxes. Another big difference was what was upstairs. Here they had a complete staging area where employees can set up displays for customers who are looking for an ensemble or color specifications, an entire call center where all calls concerning polo.com are directed to, and a large call center training area.

This is where my first day with Polo ended. We returned back the DC to receive lovely parting gifts from Rusty - custom fit knit Polo shirts. I'm exhausted from the early 8:30 start this morning and get rewarded with the scorching heat at 4:30 and the largest parking lot ever, otherwise known as 40 East. Even though I'm running late and in a hurry to get home it feels as though nothing can bring me down off this high - I start work Tuesday!