The End Has Come... For now!

I know this summer was not what I thought it would be like, that's for sure. I have never realized how much life can get in the way. Not negatively, but life does happen, and things change, good and bad. 

Back when I first started this blog, I promised myself that I wouldn't stop writing. Well, that promise was always in the back of my mind. I stopped for quite a few weeks but I had my reasons. 

One big reason the blog became non existent for some time was because of the repetitiveness of everything that I was doing at the office. I couldn't seem to find anymore ways to explain what I did all day without repeating past posts.

For this I apologize. I know now that people actually enjoyed reading my blog, after I stopped posting for a while and was asked frequently, when was I going to post next? 

So Thursday was my last day of interning. Some people might have thought I would be relieved and happy it's over because of all the commuting, long days, and constantly being busy. Yes, I am all those things but more so sad, and grateful. I am so happy and proud that I was able to experience this internship and meet some amazing people I never would have met.

Before I left the office Thursday, I really looked back on all the days I was in the office, when I walked off the elevator, grabbed my notepad and went to "C" to ask what my to-do list was for the day. It became a routine. A routine that I became used to. Being a creature of habit, most know it's never easy when change occurs. The change in starting this internship took about two weeks, but once I became used to it, it felt right. Now, almost three months later, I have to change again, just when I was comfortable and made some great friends.

Someone I work with at J Crew asked me Friday morning how I felt overall about the experience. I think they were surprised when I said I'd miss it. I didn't realize I would feel like this until I left Thursday afternoon and felt that urge to shed a tear. I didn't but I felt for sure I could have. 

Not only did I make great friendships with the other interns, but my boss "C" really made an impact on me. She was a great first real boss that I reported to in the fashion world. I never thought that it would have been the way it was in terms of our relationship. Everyday that last week, she would say to me, "What am I suppose to do without you?" Although she was very serious, this always made me smile because I knew, yes she would need more help, but that it always came out that she would miss ME.    

Forget about learning from the actual internship and the daily tasks, I have learned so much about myself, how I want to set my goals for my future, and what kind of person I want to be and will strive to become. I consider this summer a milestone for me. I have gained so much in such a short amount of time, it just happened. Like I said, life just happens, and there is no way of stopping it.

This is what life happening looks like:

When I walked past a Project Runway shoot

When I inventoried Pronovias Fall 2014 Gowns

When Hue Fall 2014 Line came in

When Hue Fall 2014 Line came in

When I would walk into the storage unit...

When I would go on weekly errands around NYC

When I sent out Ruthie Davis personalized sneaker wedges for Beyonce

When I sent out Ruthie Davis personalized sneaker wedges for Sofia Vergara

When I sent out Ruthie Davis personalized sneaker wedges for Rihanna

When I would go on weekly errands around NYC

When I had dinner in Hoboken, NJ with my sister

When I had dinner in Hoboken, NJ with my dad

When my sister got engaged to Brandon

When I had to inventory this "clutch" by Betsey Johnson

When I had to see a Podiatrist for my poor feet

When I was the receptionist for the day at the office

When I walked the CEO's dog

When I relaxed by my pool on my only days off

When I would be at J Crew early mornings and late nights

When I went to the beach on one of my days off

When I spotted Ruthie Davis shoes in my magazine on my way to work

When I picked up dresses for Holiday Market

When I would go into the storage unit...

When I saw Katy Perry in Brooklyn

When I was reunited with my friends in MA

When I was reunited with my friends in MA

When I presented my final project for the internship class

When I waited 40 minutes to get into NY Penn Station and was late to work

When Fall 2014 Coats by Betsey Johnson came in

When Fall 2014 Coats by Betsey Johnson came in

When I merchandised Fall 2014 Betsey Johnson collection in the showroom

When I merchandised Fall 2014 Betsey Johnson collection in the showroom

When I merchandised Fall 2014 Betsey Johnson collection in the showroom

When I merchandised Fall 2014 Betsey Johnson collection in the showroom

When I worked in the conference room on my last day of interning

When I was officially considered maid of honor after my last day of interning at dinner

When I was finally home with this pup after a long two and a half months

All of these photos show my life during these past months and I would not have changed anything!

Like it says in this post's title, this is the end, but only for right now. I have been interning for experience, but coming fall, I will be interning for credit in order to graduate. This has not been determined yet of where I will be interning, but when I know, I will start another blog and begin the process all over again. I cannot wait to see what my next mission will be, it can only go up from here!

Thank you to those who have been following my journey throughout the summer, and to those who have been apart of making these last few months enjoyable to be home! I will truly miss being the intern on 11 ave, but one day (hopefully sooner than later), I will be back in action in the Big Apple, and be established at my dream job. 

Stay tuned for what's to come next! :) xoxo- AE

Gift bag drama

Thursday's post, I mentioned that I would be going on vacation this week and would be interning on Monday instead.

I had a normal day, filled with multiple tasks given by "C". Today, I worked with another accessories intern, "P". She is really nice, living in NYC for the summer, but from FL. She was helping me do somethings for "C" during the day.

Throughout the day we worked on a couple of different things together. One of the major tasks was helping select items to give as gifts for editors that we work with from the brand Hue, our most popular client. "P" and I were told by "C" to pick out pairs of leggings that we would want to wear given it as a gift, and to pick two from each seasons for spring and fall. We also had to find socks as well as peds for each season too.  

This was so fun to pick out what we thought editors of magazines like Vogue and Lucky would like to wear. When we got to the storage unit of Hue though, we realized that there was limited leggings for each season. Also, each packaged gift had to tell somewhat of a story whether it was through color or pattern, it had to visually please the eye.

This became a task in itself, trying to find things that looked good together which such limited options. Between the crazy leggings we found that had a lot still in inventory, and socks that looked good next to the leggings, we thought we had a pretty good story going.

We brought back all the things we pulled to then show them to "C" who then had to get approval by a couple of different people within the office. 

  We were pretty confident with our selections until "C" called over a few different people to overlook it. 

BOOM, back to the drawing board. We weren't quite sure why, but we new it would take us another two hours to redo our choices and put everything we already pulled away. 

It was a long, LONG afternoon in that storage unit, that both "P" and I were happy to get out of at the end of the day.

During these pulls for the gift bags, I was pulled from the task to work on a PowerPoint presentation for the monthly PR portion of what the company does for the clients who hire us to do their PR. I had to collide all the images of people wearing the brands we represent and put them in order and add their logos and names of who was wearing it. 

 Once I finished the presentation, which took about another two hours, I went back to storage to help "P" finish up the pulls for the gift bags. I felt bad because these bags had to be packed, addressed, called for messengers, and then picked up all before Thursday and I was not going to be in all week. I was worried but "C" said as long as she had help from other interns, it would all work out and get done.

The only thing getting both "P" and I through the day and stuck in storage was the great view from the unit

We both decided next time we both work  on the same days, we are going to take out lunches down to the water for our breaks. 

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So, starting from now until the end of this internship, I have decided that I will be posting once a week now, including only things of which are different than the normal, typical tasks I usually do. I want this blog to be enjoyable as well as fun to read. I felt that some posts are repetitive and others are a bore (in my opinion). And to be honest, I created this blog as a hobby to do during my experience and something to look forward to. I think it has brought upon some stress on myself to always be ready to write about each intern day when sometimes things aren't as exciting as other days. 

I want to enjoy writing it as much as want my followers to enjoy reading it. 

This decision was just something I needed to make in order to still keep up the blog without the pressure of writing about two different days. 

I also want to change the angle of the writing, which I mentioned in a past post, and focus more on how I dealt with situations rather than just what I did all day. I feel by now, most of my readers understand what it is that I do normally and can understand if I refer to something.  

Hope you follow along as I change somethings up! 

Thanks for following and I hope your excited to see whats in store for the coming week:)

Errands on Errands

Talk about a work out for a day. Remember the post about me taking the subway to Wall Street and running errands? Thursday was a bit similar, but more. I never know when I will have one of these days. It's always is a surprise when I show up at the office.

Today I was prepared to do work. I wore jeans for the first time to work and I was ready to take on whatever "C" threw at me. Boy, was I in for it today.

Some of the assistants had a meeting across town, which one of the directors left some documents that were needed for that meeting. I was the lucky intern to deliver them. "C" looked up on Google maps the best way to get there and was explaining to me which subways to use. Thankfully, "K" was sitting at his desk next to her and suggested that I just take a cab and take the company credit card to save some time. I wanted to thank "K" for the nice suggestion but felt that would have been too obvious that I don't particularly like taking the subway! "C" agreed on this (jumping with joy in my head), and I was given the credit card along with instructions to get every receipt when using it.

I felt like the typical intern, getting the credit card to go out and run errands.

Everyone had an errand for me, once they knew I was going across town. After I drop off the documents needed at the meeting for "B" (director), I was than told to go to Macy's and pick up a pair of Hue socks for Lucky Magazine's photo shoot for "C". We did not have the socks they needed for the shoot in our showroom.

Also, "K" needed a box picked up from a UPS store to fit a suitcase to send back to Kipling. The dimensions needed to be the right fit for the suitcase, which later I will explain why this became an issue.

Now, after explaining all the errands needing to be done while I was out, let me start with when I left the office to catch a cab....

I was pretty lucky and grabbed a cab that was sitting right outside the office building. I gave him the address and away I went. I had to meet "B" at the address by 11:45 a.m. I left at 11:15 a.m. so I was sure to get there on time. It only took about 15 minutes to get there between traffic and one-way streets, so I was early.

I was bringing "B" documents from the company Satya, which is a jewelry brand our company does PR for.

Look Book for Fall 2014 Collections

First cab by myself

Prepared with my walking flats

I was hoping that the cab would drop me off right in front of the building I was meeting "B" at. But why would that happen? That would not be challenging enough. I was dropped off around the corner from where I was supposed to be. I had to figure out which way the number of the buildings were going, up or down. I first walked the wrong way, so I turned around and walked around the corner and finally found the right address.  

As I waited outside this building, I was of course people watching, what else was I supposed to do? I was looking and admiring all the fashionable women and men walking in and out of this building, trying to figure out why everyone looked to fabulous. I Googled the address to see what exactly I was standing in front of. Little did I know that I was standing right in front of Hearst Corporation... one of the largest fashion and lifestyle magazine publications in the world. Magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and many, many more are produced just inside this building which I am now delivering documents at.

Talk about an interns dream and perspective on how surreal interning is.

I waited until 11:45 a.m. when "B" showed up and I handed her the envelope of Satya documents she needed. She was thankful I came to give them and made sure I knew had to get back. I told her I was making a few more errands.

As I walked away in shock that I was actually standing in front of Hearst Corporation and didn't even know it, I got a text from "K" letting me know that there was a UPS store just around the corner form where I was.

I go in and was overwhelmed with lines of people and all different kinds and boxes to choose from.

I was given dimensions and none of these boxes were big enough to hold a suitcase.

In a panic, I texted "K" back telling him the bad news. He suggested I go to another one closer to the office after my errand at Macy's.

Off I was then to 34th Street.

I decided to walk from 56th and 8th to 34th and 6th so that it didn't look like I was taking advantage of the company credit card, grabbing cabs right and left. It wasn't too bad weather wise, just a tad overcast, but I was prepared with flats and an umbrella just in case.

On my walk to Macy's I was enjoying the scenery and the change of pace. I had no time limit which made things much easier to do after having one to meet "B". I took my sweet time getting there.

I went down the avenues first to get them out of the way.

 

Than the streets:

I finally made it to Macy's. 

"C" gave me a picture of what socks I was looking for. I was told to grab a pack if they had any, but if not, just one pair.

They are floral socks, not black

I had to go all the way up to the 6th floor to go to hosiery and to then find the Hue section. I found the socks, not in a pack, but single pairs, grabbed one and made the purchase. 

After I felt like I deserved some Starbucks, which was in Macy's, so cool!

$5.00 later, I was finding my way out of this huge Macy's

Now it was time to go back towards the office and find the other UPS store on 43rd and 11th. I took a cab there because there was no way I was walking that far back! I arrived right in front of the UPS which I was happy about.

I went inside, asked the man working there if they had the size box I needed and they did! I texted "K" that and he was very happy and said buy one. I didn't realize just how big this box was actually going to be until he pulled it out from the back room...

I felt bad taking a cab back to the office when I was only 15 streets away. This box would not have fit in a cab anyways, that's how big it was. I looked like your typical intern walking through the streets of NY. 

On my long walk back, I passed the Javit's Center:

When I reached the office, I was sweating, my feet hurt, and I was starved. At this time it was already 1:45 p.m. I'd say it was a long morning.

I was relaxing for about 5 minutes until "C" had asked me to help her with a pull that was urgent to be sent out ASAP. I helped her with that and then ate my lunch. 10 minutes later, "K" asked me to help him with sending out messengers for pick-ups of goody bags for our clientele. Inside these good bags were MCM hand bags. These were not your average hand bags though. They were circular, with oddly shaped handles and the map print in tan that MCM is quite known for. 

This was given to all the publications and blogger's that our company works closely with, just as a thank you.

Now, booking messengers is a process, which is done online. Each individual person with a specific address but be submitted separately. There were 35 gift bags... it was 2:30....they close at 5 p.m.... the pressure was on.

I ended up finishing the messenger requests just at 4:30 p.m. when I get a call from the company Success Express asking me how many more requests I had left because they close soon. Luckily I was done. It was amazing to see after every submission, someone would show up and walk off the elevator asking for the bag to the certain address. It was like magic, one click and BOOM, they were there and ready for pick-up.

Every time someone came in to pick-up a bag, they went to the wrong room and other interns would bring them to me to collect them. By the last pick-up, one of the male interns patted me on the back, telling me I did well under pressure and props to me for sending out the requests right. That felt pretty good, getting noticed by a peer.

Before I left for the day at 5:30 p.m., "C" wanted me to gather the rest of whatever Betsey Johnson runway looks we had left in the studio for Fall 2014, and to package them up to send back to Betsey's assistant. This was not going to be done before I left. There were just too many looks to sort through and organize. 

As I was trying to quickly gather each look and label them for the garment bags, "C" came in and was watching me. She made a comment that really just made my day. She said, "I know your going on vacation next week and will be in on Monday to make-up for Tuesday/Thursday, but I don't know what I am going to do without you on those days!" This made me feel so appreciated. I said to her, "Awe, I can do anything you need me to on Monday, but I am so sorry I won't be able to be here the other days!" She said of course your allowed to have vacation but that she relied on me to be there for when she needed assistance. This truly touched me and made me feel so great and needed. 

As I left the office that day, I was pleased with the days results. Many people never really are acknowledged for doing a job correctly in my life, only if you make a mistake or did something wrong, but to be noticed for hard work and that fact that I would have an impact on someone else and their job is really one of the best feelings to experience. 

I truly was so happy and excited to continue my journey interning and helping "C" do her work and just show what I can do.

You never know what experiences can lead to even bigger ones, and I just hope that by putting hard work into something, will eventually pay off and better my future plans. 

I am grateful to have gotten this internship and be able to say I interned there.

From the conversation "C" and I had on Thursday, I am going away next week for 6 days. I will be interning Monday to make up for the days I will be missing and plan on writing a post at some point for Monday's day, but the other days I will not be. 

Please don't forget to look for Monday's posting and then the following week, it will be back to normal posting days. 

Thanks for following my blog and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!

XOXO