Interning: First Days

This is the first of my "internship journal" I have to do to fulfill my credit requirement, but I figured it's insight into how I've felt and what I've been doing since I started, so here goes:

Expectations

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what my expectations were for this internship before I walked in for my interview the first day. The information sheet provided by CAPA was vague: "Cameo Productions. This company prepares interviews and reviews of films for radio," followed by an address and a contact number. No indication of size, scope, or even what they really what they did. Prepares interviews? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

So it was that I came to the office the first day, full of anxiety and trepidation, but enough curiosity to null the effects of either. I found Cameo in an alley off of Oxford Street, one of the main shopping districts in center city. There was a café and a few office buildings, all scrunched together and so clean and picturesque that they seemed pulled from a movie set or crafted by professionals building Epcot London. Fearing a lack of punctuality, I got there far earlier than I should have, and found the place locked and dark. No one would be there for another half hour, so I leaned up against the metal fence and waited, opening my copy of Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and admiring the similarities between the book's theme and the bourgeois Mecca that surrounded me.

Eventually the gate was open and I went inside, meeting Tom, who carried himself with the air of some authority but was also clearly not the person in charge. He offered me a glass of water, which I accepted, putting down my backpack and taking a seat at the black leather divan in the corner.

The rest of the office trickled in until half-ten, and I met the other players. Hilary, a short older woman with a slight possible-Welsh accent ran the company. Shelly, the office manager, was a tall and pretty black girl with big brown eyes and an accent that liked to exchange "th's" with "f's." Ian, the webmaster, had a pale complexion and blue eyes, with a face that seemed to slope slighty downward toward his chin. Sam, a handsome and loquacious fellow, ran the sound booth. He had animated eyes, and, as I would learn, full of wild dreams and liquid ambitions. Tom, the second-in-command, was part bearish and thoroughly geeky, with a mostly-bald head, a beard that extended halfway down his neck and round spectacles. My first actual day of work we spent talking about comic books, video games, and Back to the Future.

The five of us (minus Hilary, who had her own office) sat at a big oval table with six computers and no partitions. Thus, my first days at Cameo were spent knocking out little bits of work (putting data into programs, proofreading documents, and writing questions for interviews) while everyone else chugged along, chit-chatting as they day went by at a relaxed pace.

All I could hope or expect for was to learn something and to have genuine work to do. While there is some "grunt" office work I've been employed at, in general everyone pitches in with this work under what seems to be an "everyone does everything; everyone can do anything" attitude. The upside of this is that I've found myself writing, editing, thinking of interview questions, giving input on audio selection, and proofing copy. So far, nothing has been hectic – the relaxed pace is quite refreshing – and yet things still seem to get done. If this is the status quo for the rest of the semester, I'd be satisfied.