The Internship Diaries: I

So I'm halfway through my internship and it certainly has been a learning experience so far. More of learning from mistakes rather than learning in the first go :p But I have a firm belief that what you learn from your mistakes is better remembered (probably since one wouldn't like to go through the embarrassment again!)

My first day here was a bit of a drag. There were no other interns at the time and the place was male-dominated. There used to be a girl here who had left a couple of days before I joined. Since she and I had the same attire, it led one person to think that I was her. 'What is she still doing here?' he had exclaimed.

I was sad more so because I was placed in the IS department, and it seemingly had nothing to do with what major I would choose ahead. But later I got to know we'll be working on preparing surveys, updating their user database and working on their website so I figured it might not be so bad after all since I've done these things before. The people here turned out to be very sweet and had a good sense of humor. Plus they seemed to be very fond of food. All these traits assured me that I could survive, in fact fit in perfectly with the crowd here.

Initially I had no real work to do. Now normal people would say that's actually a good thing, not having anything to do. But I'm not normal, unfortunately. I prefer having my hands full. I actually asked them to give me something to do. From the looks of amusement on their faces I could bet they had never before come across an intern who actually asked for work. That too on her first day!

Image Courtesy: Google Images

 It was a good thing I had kept with me Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. I had purchased this book last year and had begun reading it then but somehow I couldn't complete it. I love reading books. I've finished books like 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' in two days but this book of almost 600 pages I could not complete! Now since I've picked it up after an entire year, I have started again from page number one. And one look at where my bookmark is placed tells me I will not be able to complete it this summer either. Nevertheless, it has so far proven to be a good companion in times of idleness.

Except for this one time.

The director whose office was adjacent to my cubicle called me in and said, 'Yumna I've seen you reading that book and I'm thinking you must be able to write well too. Plus you were asking for work, so could you do me a little favor?'

I nodded my head eagerly, excited to finally have some work to do.

'I need you to write a memo for me,' he said. He then explained what the scenario was and what I was to write in it. 'Make it brief,' he said.

I went back to my desk and ferociously began typing. I had worked on something similar for my HR course so I was pretty confident about what I was doing. I typed up three lines, read them then reread them for typos and grammatical errors, fetched his email address and hit send. Then I went back tor reading my book.

About five minutes later the director calls me in again. I walked in wondering whether he'll simply say, 'Good job, thanks!' or a more elaborate, 'Wow that was fast, and really brief just like I had asked. You're my memo-writer from now on!'

What he did say was something like the latter. With a twist, however.

'Beta, the scenario is a bit complex, here listen to this,' he said then read out loud a page long email he had received regarding the situation. 'You'll have to write more. I suggest that you Google up what a memo looks like and then try. A memo sure is brief but this was..'

'Too brief?' I completed his sentence sheepishly. He nodded.

Embarrassed at my over confidence I got back into my seat and Googled 'memo'. After a while I sent him a longer, more elaborate one.

So this memo-rable experience (pun intended of course!) right at the start of my internship taught me how a memo is to be written, what its format is and how long it should be. Who said there's no learning at internships?