Here is what my typical day (if there is such a thing) at Google looked like:

6:45am: Wake up, shower, get dressed, walk 4 blocks down one San Francisco hill and 4 blocks up another to get to the Google shuttle stop

7:25am: Get on the Google shuttle. For the next hour I have a few choices: work in semi-comfortable position, take a well-deserved nap, or read. I usually do some combination of all three.

8:30am: Finally arrive on the Google campus in Mountain View. The temperature is at least 10 degrees warmer than in San Francisco, and it’s definitely sunnier as well.

8:30am-9:00am: I check my e-mail, prepare for my upcoming meetings, and catch up with my officemates. I share a small office with two colleagues and a cute little dog. My officemates are a Strategic Partner Manager and a Technical Account Manager, both responsible for helping launch large merchants that have signed with Google Checkout.

9:00am: Breakfast time. Breakfast is usually a quick affair, just some fruit and yogurt. I usually get a chance to catch up with Justin and Jace, the two other MBA interns in my group. It’s difficult to resist the gourmet breakfast options of omelets, sausages, and pancakes, but I am trying to be good this summer.

9:00am-12:00pm: Time for morning meetings. I try to schedule at least 2-3 meetings for this time every morning. I have 3 projects this summer. The one that takes up more than half of my time is analyzing the sales processes for Google Checkout. My goal is to identify process gaps and inconsistencies across different sales teams, and implement and document changes. Because Google Checkout is still very much a startup product, sales teams are running at a 1000 mph, without much time to think about creating efficient, scalable processes. So, most mornings I try to focus on this project, scheduling meetings with impacted groups and then taking some time in the afternoon to develop my analysis.

12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch. Anything you might have heard about Google food is true — the food is amazing and the choices are almost unlimited with 15 (or is it 16 now?) different cafe options on campus. My favorite place is the No Name Cafe. It’s on the main campus, a short walk from my building. I usually try to schedule lunch with someone, either with one of my colleagues in Checkout or with people throughout the company.

1:00pm-2:00pm Team meeting with Strategic Partner Managers (post-sales) team. After around the horn of top issues for each manager, we do a deep dive on the marketing plan for the new Google Checkout iGadget. Marketing team is visiting for this discussion to give a quick presentation on the new gadget, and solicit input from the team. After a quick discussion, a few decisions are made, and the gadget is scheduled to be launched in only 2 weeks. In the next couple weeks, we may discover a few holes in those decisions and revise them, but for now, the decisions are made. Everyone brings their laptop to meetings at Google, so it’s also a good time to catch up on some e-mail, because my GoogleMail inbox gets full really quickly here.

2:00pm-3:00pm Meeting for my other project. My second project is to analyze the mobile marketplace and to recommend a Google Checkout mobile strategy in the US. I am gathering information for this project from three different types of sources: web research, conversations with mobile experts at Google, and interviews with current and potential Google partners.

3:00pm-3:30pm Meeting with my manager, Sales Operations Manager for Google Checkout. Her role is to work with Sales director on anything and everything that he needs done: from developing sales strategy, to preparing executive briefings presentations, to dealing with HR issues. I meet with my manager at least once a week, sometimes more, depending on what is going on with my projects. Meetings with her are very informal and she usually leaves the agenda for these meetings up to me. I asked her for some feedback on my presentation in the last meeting, and so today is the day to review my progress and get direction on my process analysis. She has been a fantastic manager – pushed me hard and provided meaningful and insightful feedback.

3:30pm-4:30pm: Mid-afternoon slowdown and catchup. Between a ton of e-mails in my inbox, interesting conversations with my officemates, going to get frozen yogurt at a downstairs cafe, and catching up with other interns I spend my time on things other than work. This is also the time to go to leadership lectures and other events on campus. Catch up with another intern as we walk over to the John Edwards talk together.

4:30pm-7:00pm Productivity time. Feeling that I am falling behind in at least one of my projects, and refreshed after the previous hour, I get down to building presentations and Visio diagrams. At any given time, I have at least 2-3 presentations in play, and I usually use the afternoons to develop them. It’s also the time when things slow down a bit at the office, no more meetings, and people are beginning to head out. A good time to do some heads-down work.

7:00pm Time to call my wife in Philly. Being on different coasts for the summer isn’t easy, but having a daily call at roughly the same time helps create some semblance of normalcy.

7:30pm-8:30pm: Workout. The Google gym gets very crowded around 5-6 pm, but by 7:30 in the evening it’s usually not as busy. I usually see at least a few other interns here. Good to get a workout in after a full day of work.

8:30pm-9:30pm: Grab dinner to go from one of the Google cafes and head on the bus home. Dinner is not as exciting as lunch, but it’s free food and I can eat it while making my way home. I try not to work on the bus home, and usually just watch a DVD on my laptop.

9:30pm-sleep: Hang out with my roommate, watch a bit of TV, make plans for the weekend, play poker, read, relax. Not much time to actually enjoy San Francisco during the week, but it’s nice to have at least an hour or two to relax at home.