Internship

I anticipate that the main skills I will be using are customer service and troubleshooting.  From what I’ve heard from past interns, what we learn during learning and development phase, we mostly don’t use.  However, it mainly serves as a foundation.  Troubleshooting skills will prove to be the most important due to the fact the company will want to see how we solve problems and if we know how to be resourceful.  One question I have is what I will be doing and how much will they expect me to know coming through the door.  Since I will be at the site for six months, the task or task I will be doing will be the deciding factor of whether I enjoy the work or will I feel dread going to the internship every morning.  I hope to work in a slow, steady and quiet environment where assignments are not expected to be rushed to completion.  But in reality, I know this is only a fantasy as companies have deadlines to meet.  I hope to work with a manger that will keep me busy and conduct his or her authority in a reasonable manner thus a pleasure to work with.  Some skills I hope to develop of course are my communications skills because through school and past jobs held this has been my greatest obstacle.  Strangely, I have no anxieties about the internship phase except that I am ready to hit the ground running.  I will stand out by always asking for work and looking to fill that excess time void.  When asked about anxieties, well my biggest one is finding a job after internship is over, so I can resume my education.  So I plan on completing the internship with a strong finish and start applying for jobs a few months prior to graduation and use alumni services to better my available opportunities.

Winter Break 3

For New Years, I took it easy by attending a small party consisting of high school classmates.  On New Years Day, I caught up on some more sleep and went to hang with family.  The highlight of my New Years Day was of course eating gumbo.  Drawing on my Wacom tablet and eating gumbo was the fun part of the day.  While I had some dread over break ending so soon, I got in my last day of relaxation, before the grind resumes.

Winter Break 2

As I stated in my last post, I primarily relaxed because when I get back, there will be alot of work ahead of me.  I basically did what I love to do on my freetime like: go to the gym and excercise to unwind and think, draw and paint by hand and begin using my new wacom tablet and play Xbox live.  These activities make me happy and are my form of yoga.

Winter Break

At the start of the break, I relaxed and got everyone significant in my life small gifts.  More or less, I began breaking away years ago from that hype of buying everyone loads of gifts and showing appreciation for one day.  Throughout the year, I gave small trinckets, gifts and showings of appreciation.  Why should we as citizens listen to a bunch people who only want us to shop alot so they make their money and dictate to us on a made up date that probably was not Jesus's real birthdate.

Internship Readiness

The qualities for internship readiness includes at the least professionalism along with organization and time management.  These qualities will allow interns to work under pressure and meet deadlines.  In addition to being self sufficient, when one does not understand something, taking the initiative to do research shows dedication.  How I will demonstrate internship readiness is continue to practice good time mangement, organization and professionalism.  I will work on slant and atleast appear interested.  I need to work alot more on my non verbal que's to appear enthusiastic about what I am doing instead of appearing to have an attitude and giving the wrong message. 

Past Jobs

My best job would be an event assistant; I assist in setting up party tray foods, spirits and other drinks for events.  I walk around and hand out food and drinks, assist with organizing and cleanup in the environment, set up paper plates, forks, spoons, and napkins.  I ask people attending event if they’re hungry or thirsty. What makes the job enjoyable is little effort is required to do the job except set up, clean up and accommodate.  Little to no customer service is required.  I earn $100 bucks every event I work in.  I get free food and drink (wine).  The only thing I hate about it is that I am on call in every other week sometimes consecutive weeks.  The skills that have developed for me was attention to detail and persistence.  What I learned about this workplace experience is I enjoy tasks with detail, little interaction and the same routine.

The worst job I’ve ever had was working at Safeway as a courtesy clerk.  My duties were to collect shopping carts, bag groceries, collect hand baskets, sweep floors, return go-back items and assist customers.    What I hated about the job was there were a lot of task required of a courtesy clerk at only $8.25 an hour.  The courtesy clerks did not get much respect especially from the spoiled customers.  Since I was 17-18 during the time I had this job, I was still adjusting my attitude and maturity and I was easily angered or frustrated with the customers shouting, demands and irritations.  The skills that helped were time management, customer service, and patience.

Occupy and Mural

There is a clear connection between the painting and today.  The similarities like the wealthy getting richer while the poor trudge and struggle to work illustrate an eerie déjà vu.  The buildings being built signify the wealthy/ leaders of the country ignoring the poor and serving their needs as well.  The buildings being constructed signifies wasted resources that could go to services for the less fortunate to access.  Similarly the wasted resources that could go towards helping people who are now protesting, it’s instead squandered on war and foreign conflicts when a severe conflict is arising in domestically.  The guard watching over the horde of sleeping homeless is similar to the police surveying the occupy protesters.  The bank showing the few wealthy people counting their fortunes is a connection to the one percent of the people in this country holding most of the wealth.  The dividers themselves can be an obvious symbol of the opportunity divide itself.  As I look at the mural the depth of field showing light going to dark highlights the glory for the rich but misery for the working and poor.  That simply means while the rich have money they are ignoring the whole problem which is the lack of opportunity while the working see no end in sight to inequality.  The fact that the mural itself was torn down is an indirect signal of rich people denial.  They don’t want to admit they’re wealth is thanks to the rigors of the destitute and poor.