Something new every day

Like I said in my last post, I was excited to return back to the office this Tuesday, especially after the crazy holiday weekend working retail.

I again had no expectations for today's tasks. I was finally getting used to commuting and finding the right train. It became like second nature and it was only my third day! I felt comfortable already and was ready to start another week. I was happy to wear my new "party pants" too! For those of you who don't know what "party pants" are, they are over-sized pants that have a print, whether it's floral, Aztec, or other patterns. They are a trend that has been going on since last summer and is still going strong and I love them because the fabrics are usually so comfortable and easy to maneuver in.

I was happy that I wore these today due to the many things that I was doing. I walked into the office at 9:30 a.m., change my shoes from flip flops to ballet flats and went to see "C" in her office. She again was surprised to see me earlier than 10 a.m. but was ready to get me started for the day. 

As she walked me back to the messenger room where most of the check-ins occur, she was going to have me start checking in the inventory that came in from the previous day, when she decided to change her mind and show me the storage unit, aka dungeon (it looks like one, just wait). All she had to say was "organize," and she had my full attention. She wanted me to go into the designer, Hue's storage unit, (each designer the company works with has their own inventory storage unit) and look for specific floral socks. While I was in there, she also wanted me to organize the merchandise, fold everything to make it more accessible, and to label the drawers of which the socks, tights, and stockings were placed in. This was a job for "Amanda the organization queen!" 

Organization should be my middle name. I live, breathe, eat, organizational skills that only describe my personality perfectly.

Anyways, "C" walked me down the hallway of the storage units and we finally land at the Hue's unit. 

She unlocked the door and boy, do I get excited. Everything was a disaster (most people would freak out, but not me). It was probably a 10 by 10 storage room, full of boxes of merchandise such as tights, tights, and more tights. I have never seen so much Hue tights in my life. 

This is where I spent the majority of my morning. I couldn't help but make this a fun project, as I opened my Pandora Radio on my phone and started to look for those floral socks. 

As I am in there, sweating, I took a look outside the window that was in the storage unit and I just had to take a picture of the view:

As i started to get into the search of the missing floral socks, I also stared to organize and label the drawers that the socks, tights, and stockings were going into. I had this label machine that allowed me to type in anything and print a sticker to put onto the drawers. This was all new to me, the label maker!

I had to document my first label ever made:

I got the hang of it after a couple of times making them. This was a long process of organizing all the different styles of Hue's products. There was also a wall full of leggings which was a whole other project in itself, which I will probably be finishing on Thursday.

I was amazed at all the Hue's inventory and different types of tights there really were!

As I finish up in the storage unit, "C" sent me a text asking me how I was doing and my progress. The storage unit is rather far from the office and so she had asked me to bring my phone with me in case I had any questions for her. She was really nice and explained to me what she was expecting before leaving me in there alone. I was working in there for about an hour and a half until she came to get me. She was happy with what I had worked on for the time being and wanted me to go back in there and finish for Thursday because there was a lot more to do. 

 So at this time it's about 11:45 a.m and my whole morning passed. A couple of pulls needed to be done for publications Vogue Japan and Seventeen Magazine. One of the pulls was so exciting to be apart of. It was for the November issue of Seventeen Magazine featuring Ariana Grande, pop singer on the top of the billboard charts right now, as the featured cover. Seventeen was in need of plaid knee-high socks for the photo shoot, starting June 1. This was such a cool opportunity that most people wouldn't get while still in college. Now it's not a guarantee that the socks we send them will all be used in the photo shoot, but that it's possible, is good enough for me!

Again, this is the type of stuff that I work with "C" with all day long. We pull the inventory that these publications are requesting of the accessories team to send to their office for view and then they choose what to use and eclventually send it all back. Again, the fact that I am personally picking out accessories to be used for photo shoots for top fashion magazines in the world is still amazing to me to think that over and over again.

After these pulls, I set-up a loan, sent the messenger a message asking for pick-up and off the merchandise went. 

So after waiting for available intern computers with the right software, it was already 1 p.m. and I was being told to grab my notepad and a pen. I had forgotten a major portion of this internship program that is run by this company. As all the interns rushed into the office in the back of the showroom, we sat around an oval marble table with spinning chairs, with an older man sitting already with papers in his hands. This was our first day of internship class.

Tom Handley, a professor at The Parcen's School of Design, also teaches seminars to interns at five different PR firms in NYC. These seminar classes are about interning and what to get out of the experience and how to be prepared once we are out in the real world of fashion. It was an interesting welcome speech he gave, explaining his background, his career, and how he got into teaching and being a mentor for interns in fashion. He was quite a character, which made his stories even more engaging. Even though he was talking with sophistication, he would use the word "hashtag" and then say the key term to describe what he was discussing. For example, he was discussing what we were going to be focusing on each Tuesday in the class and how it would empower us to focus on our careers and influences. He said "hashtag empower" in the middle of his sentence, which made us all laugh out of curiosity. 

This class was going to be a great way to interact with the other interns as well as learn a little bit about everyone's taste in fashion and how people got their fashion information via online, print, social media, etc. 

This class will be every Tuesday from 1:00 p.m. -2:30 p.m. and will focus on our personal interests and what inspires us in fashion. Every week, we will have an image to show the other interns what inspired us for the week, using different outlets for each image. 

There will also be a magazine project, which he said he would go into more details next Tuesday. 

It was an interesting way to approach this experience and I am excited to see what this class has in store for us in terms of discussions!

Anyways, at this point I still didn't eat my lunch, so "C" told me to eat and take my break. I took my break until about 3 p.m. and started doing more pulls for "C". These pulls were for two different publications, both seeking fall looks from the Betsey Johnson collections, which they had seen on Style.com. They are both doing different photo shoots and wanted to see which inventory items we actually had in the showroom. This took the remainder of my afternoon, searching for the inventory, making loans, hanging and bagging everything together to be sent out correctly. I didn't even get to finish these two pulls, but it was ok because they are not due until next week so I will be finishing them on Thursday as well.

As I walked out of the office at 5:30 p.m. I was exhausted but so happy about how today went. I really enjoyed everything that I worked on, met some more interns, the class went well, and I was more comfortable in general being at the office and of course, commuting. 

Of course I spoke too soon and when I had arrived at Sec, the board showing all the trains and their tracks, changed the times of the train and the one I was supposed to catch home got cancelled. Thankfully though, this was a malfunction and it ended up coming right on time!

Starting next week on my blog posts, I will be trying a new angle of the blog, maybe more on being in the city, the street styles, train stations, etc. Feel free to add any comments below if you have any suggestions, comments, or anything you would like to hear more about! I am open to hearing your thoughts!

Stay tuned for my post on Thursday's interning day! 

Survived my first week!

I arrived at the office at 9:30. Earlier than Tuesday; I knew exactly how to get there now!

These cool flyers were in the elevator of the building:

And this one I particularly liked:

You can play word search on your 30 second elevator ride to the sixth floor! 

Anyways... I walked into the studio thinking "hmm maybe if I show up at 9:30 every time, I could leave a half hour earlier and make an earlier train?" I was afraid to ask but I went right up to "C". She responded with a "uhh yeah that should work fine," and that was it. So now I get to eat dinner at normal people hours! 

I didn't know what to expect today. As I grabbed my notepad to take notes on my first task, "C" brings me over to the Betsey Johnson merchandise in the showroom and says that she wants me to organize the jewelry that was thrown into the drawers. I had to sort them by season and make sure each item had a barcode. If not, I had to use the look books for spring 2014 and fall 2014 and make some using the system with the labeling machine.

I think I forgot to mention in my last post, but the owner of the company has this dog that follows him around the studio. He's an adorable little boxer who only wants to play with everyone. Out of no where, he just pounces and the runs around the studio in circles. Probably my highlight of the morning was when I was sitting on the floor, while sorting the jewelry, and Indie the dog comes up to me with some purple rag, aka his toy, and plops it in my lap and just stares at me. Of course I had to then play with him for 5 minutes as he runs around the studio continuously.

Seriously the highlight of my morning!

The sorting of jewlery took me about an hour and a half before "C" came over to see how everything was going. Many of the items weren't labeled with any bar codes nor located in the look books. "C" told me to take a break from that because that is a continuous task that isn't an urgent priority. 

She told me that "K" had something he wanted me to work on for him. This was working with Photoshop and press clips. He taught me a brief overview of Photoshop, sent me press clips from Instagram via email, and showed me how to paste, crop, and save into the specific client's file on the computer to have each one saved properly and easy to find. This way would apply to online press clips as well. As far as print press clips goes, "K" showed me how to use to scanner to scan in publications and such. The scanner scans the images right to a folder which everyone has access to which I thought was pretty cool. 

So far, Instagram has been their biggest way of gathering efficient press clips from events. These press clips are particularly from an event in which they were honoring the brand Ray Band with the hashtag, #District1937. It was fun to see all the photos people had posted from the event and are still after days of being there. It must have been a great event to attend since most attendees received free sunglasses. Why didn't I start a week ago?? P.s the band Blondie performed at the event too.

Anyways, still working on these press clips, I waited AGAIN to see when everyone would eat lunch and again didn't see much action. So around 1 pm I ate my delicious tuna sandwich, fruit, and vitamin water at my desk.  

After lunch, I proceeded to finish the Instagram press clips, to then have another email from "K" for more press clips for online publications. Such publications included Glamour.com, Elle.com, InStyle.com, and more. This then took me the majority of the afternoon. They have a certain way of organizing the press clips and they only want you to include the outlet or title of website, the date that the story was published, the actual story, and any images included. This took a while considering I'm no pro at Photoshop. Once I got the hang of it though, it was a piece of cake, just time consuming. 

I finally finished those around 5:15. I spent most of my day on the computer, but if anyone now asks me to do press clips, I'm an expert!

Apparently Dunkin Donuts donuts are what people fight over when you are in your mid thirties... I have never seen so many people grab donuts as if they haven't eaten in weeks. I had good self control today though, so I passed on one but boy did they have an assortment.

Also, today made me realize that it's not how fast you do something, it's the end result that matters. I felt good that although I didn't do as many things as I did Tuesday than today, I learned a lot, accomplished my tasks and received recognition for my good work. 

Today made me feel good about this internship. I have already learned so much in the first week of being there, I wonder what else is in store!

As I said in the beginning, I got to leave at 5:30, therefore I was already out the door and heading towards Penn. 

I can say that today made me more comfortable commuting as well as what I did at the office. Already the end of my first week and I can't wait to go back Tuesday! 

P.S- I almost bought a Krispy Kream in Penn but I was late for my train going home ;)

There and back in one piece

Well folks, I survived day one! After a long, LONG day of traveling, working, and traveling again, I can say it was a success for a first day status. First days are always overwhelming and that was pretty much how I would explain it in one word. I learned a lot in the 8 hours of being in the office, but can't promise I'll remember it all for Thursday! Between the train ride, finding the office, actually learning all the specifics of my duties, and then finding my way back to the train to go home, we're talking about 13 hours  committed to this internship. My initial thought was, "how do people do this everyday?" I guess when you love something, it's not work.

When people who travel to work everyday on public transportation say how much of a hassle commuting is... I understand and agree completely. This was one of the most nerve wracking parts to my day, believe it or not!

Let me start from the beginning of my day when I arrived at Harriman train station at 7:30 AM:

This was the first part of my reality with commuting. After being dropped off by my dad, I waited their patiently for the train. I was 25 minutes early. You can say I was a bit worried I wouldn't make it.

I get on the train and already can't find an open seat, welcome to peak travel hours Amanda! As I sit next to a young woman drinking her Starbucks coffee, I tend to drift off after an hour for about 20 minutes and realized that I was almost at Secaucus Junction. As I rush off the train to transfer to Penn Station, my nerves kicked in. Another 10 minutes on the train and I finally arrived in Penn. My very helpful older sister told me to look for 8th avenue and to try and get out on 33rd street to be closer to where I had to walk towards. I found 33rd and 8th's exit and went up the escalator. I was finally in the city and about 45 minutes early... Again, commuting problems.

So I start to walk, panicked a little not knowing where I was going exactly. I Google mapped the address and thank god I did because I probably would have ended up in Times Square if I didn't. After frantically texting my sister and mom, I had arrived in front of the office! 

As you can see in the photo, it's the door with the stairs on one side and the ramp on the other. 

I was still 20 minutes early. I slowly walked across the street and walked in. As I walked in the door, a young man walked in before me, held the elevator door and said, "what floor you going to?" I said, "sixth floor please!" As we both walked out together, he realizes that I don't know where I am and asks who I am there to see. I tell him and he goes, "oh, you are with us!" He tells me to take a seat until he tells me further instructions. The lobby looked as if I had walked onto a movie set of some chic fashion studio. 

I was getting excited now and my nerves were slowly going away. The man, "K" brings me to the intern area which had four decks with computers at each, as well as a million magazines on each. I proceeded to wait until the assistants had their office meeting. 

As I waited for "K" to come back, I got a little nosy and snooped around. I thought I would document the magazines for proof:

Life of an intern in fashion! Anyways, "K" came back with the woman I was told I would be working with, "C". "K" and "C" gave me a checklist of all the things that would be covered in the days work and to follow them as we took an office tour, aka studio. 

Let me just say how chic and fabulous the studio looked! It was all brick walls (real) with hard wood floors and a grey/white kitchen. It was like a movie!

So as they took me around, they showed me all the designers they work with as the accessories team, and then what the company works with as a whole. It was interesting to see all the different brands and people they work with, directly, may I add. That was the best part, finding out that the company is the mediator between the designer and print/online publications who are doing photo shoots and need merchandise. I managed to be put onto the accessories team, which I wanted! Boy were there accessories. All different types of brands too, high end, low end, and in between. 

So my first task was to "check in" the inventory. Because they hold so much product in the show room, bar codes are made for every single item to keep track of where it is. This was my task for the first hour. Scanning bar codes, making bar codes, finding accessories that need to be sent out to a publication. That consists of making a 'loan' documenting that they are in custody of the item(s) and the address it is being sent to. A messenger from that publication than is sent a 'need messenger' message through a system which then notifies them to come pick up the merchandise. This is a long process and a lot of different tools used on the company's computer system. Will be needing to get used to using it. 

My second task was to make sure that the order of sunglasses that came in from Milan were all accounted for by opening each case and finding the style numbers on the package descriptions. This to me was amazing to see because it was one of the companies that they work with that produces all of the designer's eye-wear such as Giorgio Armani, Versace, Ray Band, and more. It was crazy to hold hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and see all the different styles coming for fall 2014.

Not knowing when to take a break to eat my lunch, I asked "C" if I could, finally at 1:00 pm.

After taking a half hour break, I was ready to go back to finishing checking in the Milan inventory. I just got back into the groove, when "C" came over and asked me to help her with an Excel document and transfer information regarding company numbers and when they would appear via online or print. This was my definition of busy work, and it kept me busy for about 20 minutes until the computer I had been working on decided to crash and give me problems on my first day. I had to go back and forth to other computers all day long to finish this document that "C" wanted. By now it was already 3:30.

At this point "C" knew this was not going to take me all day and gave me another assignment: "pull items to send out to magazines for their photo shoots by using the descriptive e-mail sent for request." This was another part of my day that really got me excited! Both publications were for Vogue China and Seventeen Magazine. Their photo shoot director sent "C" a list of things such as colors, items, types, etc. that we would have in our show room for their photo shoot and to have it ready by a certain date/time in the messenger room in the office. This was my time to shine! I was allowed to pick all the items, have "C" approve them and then set up a 'loan' for the publication, package the merchandise for send-out, and off it would go. This gave me such a rush knowing that, maybe not all the items would be featured in the photo shoots, but that I contributed to a fashion magazine's spread!

That was a great feeling.

After working on those two pulls, packing them up for the messengers, and watching them leave the office, I was officially done for the day. It was now 6 pm on the dot. My train had two times, one at 6:20 and the other 6:51.... I was NOT running.

I was satisfied with my day as I strolled back to Penn. I was going over my tasks and the things I should be remembering for Thursday. I was overwhelmed but knew this was going to be a great experience.

As I got back to Penn, I immediately went into a panic because I didn't see my train on the big black board that tells you what trains are coming. I called my sister almost in tears, worried that I would be stuck in the city. She tells me to go ask about the NJ Transit and to then find the first train back to Secaucus. I did just that and I was calm again.

I ended up making it back to Harriman station at 8:10 pm. I was exhausted, hungry, overwhelmed, yet couldn't wait to tell my parents about my day! As my dad drove me home he kept asking me specifics and I kept saying that I refuse to repeat myself and to wait until we got home so I could tell mom too!

As we ate dinner, yes my parents waited lfor me to come home to eat at 8:20 pm, I shared with them all the tasks I did all day and how the people were that I was working with. They told me how proud they were of me for taking this opportunity. That made all the more reasons to feel good about the day and to get ready for the weeks to come.

Having the day in between really will help me function a little better and get into internship mode when needed. I am excited to see what I will do Thursday and can't wait to blog about it!

Follow my blog and my journey as I am just starting and want to share details about my experiences. More details about my days interning will come!

Stay tuned for Thursday's post:)

Experience of a Lifetime

College can be challenging, demanding, stressful, costly, and overwhelming. But it's an experience of a lifetime that not one person doesn't wish they could repeat all over again. Some people take advantage of all the opportunities, while others party until the sun comes up. However your college days are spent, there is one thing that every student MUST complete before graduation... an internship. 

Yup, the deathly concept of fetching for coffees and making copies of important documents to then file in a massive filing cabinet labeled in coding that only makes sense to the person who labeled the files. An internship is not something people look forward to so to say, but it does create connections and experience for the real world.

Some people get ahead and do more than one. If your lucky, you get one in the industry you want to land a job in. I for one had that goal when I started college, to gain as much experience as I could. My major/minor consists of three different industries, fashion, communications, and event planning. This opens more doors for me than just one field. 

Last summer I interned for a small advertising and public relations firm in a local town near me. It was great experience, taught me a lot, but I was seeking more towards fashion related. This summer, I managed to get a dream internship in Manhattan. Another public relations firm, but in fashion and lifestyle. This is the ultimate experience that makes me excited yet nervous. It is in fashion, in NYC, and intimidating. All the things the fashion industry consists of!

This blog will be my way of sharing my experiences through my eyes as an intern. I hope your just as anxious as I am because I start Tuesday, still don't know what to wear, and have to find my way to 11 ave! Wish me luck...