On our second day, we got the chance to visit Southwire’s copper production plant and headquarters to interview company representatives and ask our questions. In the morning, we had to meet at around 8 a.m. to take a two-hour bus ride to Carrollton. Because it was so early in the morning, many of us hadn’t had breakfast yet. Luckily, one of the American professors brought a lot of delicious donuts from Krispy Kreme which was a pleasant surprise since many of us had wanted to try them.
When we arrived, a Southwire employee gave us a tour of the copper production plant. It was really cool to see some machinery and how copper is processed. This gave us a better understanding of the company’s work. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures; that’s why there are none of the plant in this post.
After the tour, we took the bus to drive to Southwire’s headquarters where we had a thorough talk with the sales director, vice president of Information Technology Services and the director of Technology Integration. Before starting asking our questions, Southwire kindly provided us with a delicious lunch including salads, sandwiches, chips and cookies. After lunch, we began asking all kinds of questions about the order to cash process to empathize with the company’s business leaders. This way, we got a lot of insights into their business processes. We had made the mistake of leaving all of our stuff including laptops in the bus, so we struggled to take notes during this important conversation. Fortunately, we could record the meeting with our phones (which we of course did not forget).
On our way back, we stopped in Macon for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Parrilla. We ate all sorts of yummy tacos, burritos, tortillas and enchiladas. But this was not the end of the day for us students. In the evening, we met up in the dorm’s community room. We were surprised that the Americans had never played the drinking game Rage Cage, so we had to show them. The game lasted not only one round but surely five or six that evening. We all had so much fun and more than one person found themselves in the cage throughout the night.
We had planned to go to a karaoke bar but after walking there we saw that it was closed on Tuesdays. Quick change of plans and we arrived in another bar where we could even play German songs. A friend of one of the American students was so excited to meet and talk to Germans that he bought a lot of drinks for all of us. A cheap night out for us! Everyone laughed, danced and sang along to the music and we all had an amazing night with lots of fun.
