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.
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:)
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:)
No comments:
Post a Comment