My final thoughts about my WLE are that I am going to miss having a professional workplace to go to once a week with a great, understanding, and supportive mentor. This experience will effect my future decisions by carrying the thought of how this is going to affect our natural environment with the choices I and those around me make.
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As an intern I've improved by being less stressed about every task and accepting when I mess to simply move forward and try again with a better out come. My workplace is a great place to work because of the strong sense of community amongst everyone who works there.
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In order to find my WLE and get hired I had to prove to Mr.Cheng and Mr.Cramer that I was a student worth hiring and be interviewed by Ms.Neves to show her I was right for the internship. The most effective way of looking for a job and getting hired is by having someone who you have a good relationship vouch for you. As a result of my WLE, I think being a professional or a responsible adult in the work world means getting what you need to do done whether or not it fits into your schedule, it's something you want to do, or if it's something you agree with you need to do it. 
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From this WLE experience I've learned how I most effectively learn and take directions. The challenges I faced in my WLE were keeping up with the tasks my mentor assigned to me. To over come these challenges I had to communicate with my mentor about how I was progressing with tasks and if I needed help or more time. From this WLE I discovered my passion for protecting our natural environment. My WLE affected the greater community within and outside of my high school. I now believe that being able to communicate and function with a group is essential to any work place. A specific skill I worked on was effectively listening and completing orders. If someone asked me why what I did at my WLE is important I would tell them that their trash doesn't take care of itself. From what I've learned from my WLE this effected what I wanted to study in college and what I want to do as a career to support myself.
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I am using the leadership skill of communicating powerfully the most at my WLE. I have been very effective in using this skill since I must constantly interact with other coworkers on a daily basis. Being able to communicate powerfully with those around me allows me to gain help when working on tasks and to find a new job when I have completed my pervious task so I am not simply sitting around. My mentor uses the leadership skill of productive collaboration the most because of how often she must visit and work with customers. 
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Today at my WLE Natasha and I visited about 25 small businesses to talk to them about a free recycling service that is separate of AB32. This allowed me to see how Natasha approaches, works with, and helps customers decide on what type of recycling and/or organics a business may need. After seeing this I feel I am ready to help Natasha in actually stepping to speak to businesses myself in regards of Natasha's job to assist businesses with recycling and organic conversion by the beginning of next year. 
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For my WLE project I am thinking of assisting my mentor, Natasha, with reaching her work goal of converting all businesses in the Castro Valley area with 3 cubic yards or more of trash to a recycling program and possibly an organic program as well. To come up with this idea was fairly easy. There is already a law being put into affect called AB32. So for the Castro Valley area they created a contract with Waste Management to help divert recyclables and organics from their garbage. Since Natasha is the recycling coordinator for the Castro Valley area this job was placed on her. I am excited to do this project because of all the first hand experience I am and will be gaining. In order to accomplish this I will be shadowing Natasha as she visits businesses to talk to them about this goal and at some point actually stepping up myself to talk to the customers.
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My main responsibility is to follow the various orders I am given on a day-to-day basis. My "title" would be recycling coordinators intern. The types of tasks I complete vary from week to week. Yesterday my job included the paper/computer work of a waste audit as well as assisting in a waste audit (which is going to a customer and assessing how they can better incorporate recycling and organic waste into their waste and how much it may or may not cost them). The previous two weeks ago my job consisted of assisting with a waste audit as well as visiting a closed land fill and learning about what happens before, during, and after a land fill is closed and becoming CPR certified as an adult respondent. My days are never the same but typically revolve around some form of a waste audit and following up with the audit with the proper paper work to send to Ms.Neves superiors for information and proof of a done job.
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The name of my workplace is Waste Management and this company is responsible for the collection and allocation of trash, recyclables, and organic waste for specific parts of California as well as many other parts of the country. This is a large corporation. My workplace is located in Oakland and looks like a large corporate multi-office and multi-conference room building with a large garage/back office building for the garbage trucks driver responders located in the back with a giant WM logo in the front. Approximately 200 plus people within both the building and garage/office. My workplace employ's people from all ranges of education and experience. A majority of the people at my workplace do not have college degree's of any sort. My workplace serves a majority of the community throughout California and the rest of the country. The strengths of my workplace is it's size and ability to deploy people to assess and take care of multiple jobs and tasks at once. The weaknesses of my workplace is that with this size it can be confusing on who to ask for help when a problem occurs and take longer than necessary to resolve the problem.     
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My mentor's name is Natasha Neves. Her job title is recycling coordinator. A typical day for Ms.Neves varies from a wide variety of things. Most days consist of either visiting a client to help set a recycling route for the customer or working on a project back at her office. Her current project is to make the entire building in which her office is located up to energy efficiency standards. Her day will usually consist of one of those two things and plenty of other paper work. To get this job it required her a college degree along with the set of skills unique to her that she came with. Those skills include being an EMT and a military back ground. 
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