Can't Think of a Title

Another wonderful week at Laughlin. On Monday, I finally got to do some work for Master Lock, a real, current client. So that was pretty cool. Besides that, though, I didn’t get much to do with week aside from the usual social media content scouring.

I’m finding it’s just the luck of the draw as an intern; sometimes there’s work for you, and sometimes there’s not. I talked with Laura for a while on Friday, and she mentioned that it’s totally different when you’re a full-time employee. Your job is more structured, of course, versus when you’re an intern, you’re pretty much just doing all the random tasks no one else has time for.

That’s equally comforting and discomforting. It’ll be nice to actually have consistent work to do, but I kind of like having my hands in all different projects, doing something totally different from week to week.

But I should be grateful for the tasks I’ve been getting. On Monday, Andy showed me his latest task. First of all, he’s up in some secluded hallway on the third floor. Second of all, he’s in a room full of boxes of ancient beta tapes, and he’s got to go through them, one by one, and write down what’s on each one. Geez.

Something else interesting happened this week: It was discovered that an employee that left LC back in 1998 had some money left over in some sort of retirement account, but they couldn’t get a hold of him. Internet to the rescue!

There was a guy running a marketing agency in New York, but he didn’t have Laughlin listed in the experience section of his profile (but his partner did). Anyway, it turned out that was him. Oddly, there was a Journal Sentinel article with a random photo of a man of the same name, shopping in a store. That was weird.

I think I’m starting to loath social media. It’s a lot of stress, often TMI and I’m questioning whether it’s really worthwhile for all the things we’re trying to do with it. Still figuring all that out.

Wednesday was supposed to be a major snow day, but we all saw our hopes dashed. Well, I guess the suburbs got a lot of snow, but downtown got a pathetic sprinkle.

While I’m remarking on negative things, I’ll take a moment to profess my hatred toward Zimbra, our Web-based e-mail/calendar system. I wish we could just use Google… The most important benefit of Gmail over virtually any other e-mail client is that it groups e-mails by conversation. Since it’s a communications agency and we’re collaborators, there are tons and tons of e-mails floating around all day—people responding to different parts of other people’s e-mails. It’s a major pain to have to sift through an inbox of, say, 40 messages when there are really only 3 or 4 conversations. Why must we be so archaic?

And speaking of archaic, there’s been a lot of fuss lately—well, not really—over our intranet, which is equally 20th-century. It kind of bothers me that, as a communications agency that posits itself as forward-thinking and modern can so blatantly overlook its internals. But it’s not exactly that we’ve overlooked these issues; everyone knows they’re there, it’s just no one makes any effort to correct them.

I suppose it’s because the decision-makers don’t have time to work on all this stuff. And it’s a pretty major thing to change; there’s the huge investment of training every employee on the new software. And that we just recently “upgraded” to Zimbra. (I shudder at what must have been before.)

On a better note, Thursday was the annual holiday luncheon, and that was absolutely brilliant. I ate way too much.

Post-Thanksgiving

After a wonderful, revitalizing Thanksgiving Break, it was back to work. And work I did: Writing tweets, drawing up site maps, making handouts and doing some research for a new project. On Friday, I did a little more monkey work (and I'll have some more of that for Monday). Normally I'm opposed to monkey work, but it's nice for a Friday.

I've met a bit of a struggle this week... The classic Mac v. PC scenario re-emerged. Being design-conscious, I greatly prefer to work in an OSX environment, but the rest of my colleagues are trapped in Microsoft Office. Needless to say, I use iWork (but not only because it's more beautiful). Anyway, I've been hitting a few speed bumps in converting between filetypes—you know, the kind that aren't supposed to happen—so that was a bit stressful. It's one of those things that isn't too big a deal, though, and once I realized that, it was all better.

Another thing that irked me this week was when Sarah said we should consult the creative people for their expertise in some design concept or other. I resented that, although I tried not to show it. I know that my role within LC is not creative—I'm a strategist and planner—but I know that I'm design-savvy and capable of doing the simple things we had been discussing. With my eyes closed. Why should I go bother someone, asking them questions I already know the answers to and begging them to do some work that I could do in the time it'd take to explain what I had in mind? This is still not resolved—just sidestepped for the moment. I know I need to respect my role here, but I want to show everyone that I am capable of doing more than my job description (which, incidentally, is semi-nonexistent) dictates.

The last thing of note: Paul sat down and had a talk with me about Poland. "Do it. Don't even think twice about it... And don't think for a second it'd jeopardize your chances here," he told me. That was a comfort. One of the biggest mental battles I was fighting was regarding whether I'd stir up dirt with Laughlin by leaving (although I think I knew deep down that it'd be okay). "Wow, if I were in your shoes, I'd go in a heartbeat. Actually, I'm really jealous." That made me feel better.

I'm still partially unsure about going to Poland next semester... I'm mailing in my documents on Monday. For now, I think I'm going unless some unjumpable hurdle comes up, but it's still not 100-percent confirmed.

All Done with the UW Campaign

This was the second and final week of the United Way giving campaign at LC. On Wednesday, we had our Balloon Burst, which went great. Everyone who came had a lot of fun, and most of them won prizes. Then on Friday I got to draw the 50/50 raffle winner, and we tallied up the winner of the LC Penguin promo.

Besides that, I didn't have much to do this week. I wrote up a few project memos for the LC Digital Initiative we're working on, but that only took a day or so. On Tuesday, for example, I went from person to person, looking for some work to do. No one had anything for me, so I devoted some time to scouring the Internet for CoolJobs tweet ideas.

It was a little frustrating not having anything to do. They're often telling me how great I am at this or that, yet here I was, withering away.

That's one thing I noticed... It takes them time to find work for me, and everyone at LC is so busy that they don't have extra time to find things for me to do. Hopefully, though, they'll have me in mind now, and when something crosses their desks that they can have me do, they'll note it.

I did get some such work on Friday, which ended up being a very busy day. Unfortunately, the work in question was paragon monkey work. Literally selecting, copying and pasting. It was valuable for the company, though, and extremely time-sensitive, so I put up with it. And it's not as if I were the only one doing it; several full-time people were doing the same, exact thing. So it wasn't so bad.

Friday was also great, because a few other interns and I got to have lunch with Steve Laughlin. It was pretty exciting to meet and speak with one of the founders of LC, who I'd never really gotten any face time with before. It was a little restrictive having so many people around... Rather than having a conversation, it turned into more of a classroom lecture, but it was still great to tap into his mind.

I also noticed that my colleagues seemed more interested in impressing Steve than having a legitimate conversation... They were quick to spout off anything that sounded professional or intelligent, and the whole thing felt a bit contrived. We did have Panera catered, though.

Also, I found out that I'll have a legitimate vacation for Thanksgiving Break: The office is closed on Thursday and Friday, and there's an early release on Wednesday. That means, since I don't come in till the afternoon anyway, I won't be coming in Wednesday. So from Wednesday through Sunday, I'll be able to take a nice, long breath. Can't wait.