Internship: First Day

My first day at my internship went well, for the most part. There was one major setback to a completely perfect first day, but I will get to the good stuff first. I arrived at 9 and met with Melinda and Katie, the internship coordinators, and Laura, the other intern, for an orientation. They explained our responsibilities to us and showed us around the office, basic first-day stuff. Around 10:30 they set us loose at our workstations to familiarize ourselves with the system and get started. Joanna, who interned last semester and is sticking around until she can find a real job, explained to me another aspect of the position. Basically, while I am there the company will be organizing four golf shows and one wine-tasting event. My responsibility on the first golf show is to help organize a Clearance Center, a place where pro shops can liquidate their extra inventory. So, I made a few calls on that.

Melinda came upstairs (the office is divided into two floors) around noon and assigned me the task of making some follow-up calls to various golf courses; there were maybe 35 courses on the list, and I left voicemail with about half. Almost 2/3 of the way down, my neighbor in the next cubical over (Brent?) says to me, "The phone number you've been giving people is incorrect." Joanna gave me the wrong long-distance number! She was very apologetic, but I have to make 15 calls on Friday to make up for this error. I didn't want to say, "Joanna gave me the wrong number" when I told Melinda, but I also didn't want her to think that I messed up. I just told her that I was working with the wrong phone number and will call everyone back in a couple of days.

Other than that, it went well. I like the office environment and I think I'll get a lot out of it. I even get to travel to some of the events: Portland and Long Beach, maybe Salt Lake City. Joanna is friendly and seems nice, so I hope I can talk with her more. She graduated from UPS in May; I asked her if she knew my brother's best friend, who also graduated in May. She said she did. Laura, the events intern (I'm the marketing intern) is a student at UW Bothell. She insanely tall and thin with bleached blonde hair and seems nice enough, though I think I'm going to need to crack her shell. I have the advantage of being older than both her and Joanna, which isn't actually an advantage but it makes me feel less shy about opening up.

The only negative aspect that I see right now is the commute: it's about an hour in each direction, so I will need to leave the house at 6:50 3 days a week. But, I only work until 4:30 instead of 5. Plus, there is a Value Village right down the street which seems to have a great selection (I went into before my interview to kill time) and I am looking forward to staying later one day and doing some shopping. The bus stops at Northgate, which will be another shopping temptation, but on an intern/part-time receptionist salary, I need to be reasonable.

One thing that is starting to worry me is my neck; I've been getting terrible pains in the right side near where it meets my shoulder for the past week or so when I sit at my desk. I think it's my posture, but it's starting to bother me when I'm not at work too. David was sick this week, and I hope that the pain just means that I am coming down with something too instead of a more serious ailment. I'll have to ask my mom what she recommends, as both a former nurse and someone who's sat behind a desk for years.