This week I was a bit apprehensive about going to my internship. I had just gotten my midterm evaluation and I had set up a follow up meeting with my boss to discuss it in detail. Now, don't get me wrong. The evaluation wasn't bad, but there were areas where I could definitely improve. Plus, who doesn' t get nervous when placed under inspection.
Once there, I was asked to proofread multiple documents and presentations in English. I was asked not only by Erica (who tends to ask me these things) but also another coworker with whom I hadn't interacted before. My boss also asked me to convert more web articles into PDFs. I also had to "clean" the PDFs up because since they were taken from the web they had a lot of advertisements that had nothing to do with the article itself. I had never done this before; I honestly didn't know one could make a web anything a PDF, let alone be able to manipulate them. This is very useful information that will extend beyond my time at this internship.
When my boss was finally available for our one on one meeting, we met in the conference room. He was very pleasantly surprised I had asked for a follow up meeting. He told me that I am the first of his interns to ask for an evaluation follow up. This helped ease the tension I had. After that, he explained that the sections that I had not done so well on were not because I wasn't doing well but because he wanted to entice me to do better and to avoid slacking off for the rest of the internship. I was very happy that this was the explanation. He also mentioned that I shouldn't be afraid to ask more questions. That I am not disturbing or disrupting anyone in doing so. He greatly encouraged me to do this, which is what I will do from now on. I was in fact afraid of being a nuisance that I tried to figure everything out on my own. But now that I know that they don't mind, I shall ask for help much more frequently.
I was very impressed with the difference between boss and underling relationship between the Italian culture and the American one. I felt as if my boss here actually cared more about my personal growth than what I was bringing to the table professionally. Whereas in my working experience in the US it has been the exact opposite. It was a nice change :)
Once there, I was asked to proofread multiple documents and presentations in English. I was asked not only by Erica (who tends to ask me these things) but also another coworker with whom I hadn't interacted before. My boss also asked me to convert more web articles into PDFs. I also had to "clean" the PDFs up because since they were taken from the web they had a lot of advertisements that had nothing to do with the article itself. I had never done this before; I honestly didn't know one could make a web anything a PDF, let alone be able to manipulate them. This is very useful information that will extend beyond my time at this internship.
When my boss was finally available for our one on one meeting, we met in the conference room. He was very pleasantly surprised I had asked for a follow up meeting. He told me that I am the first of his interns to ask for an evaluation follow up. This helped ease the tension I had. After that, he explained that the sections that I had not done so well on were not because I wasn't doing well but because he wanted to entice me to do better and to avoid slacking off for the rest of the internship. I was very happy that this was the explanation. He also mentioned that I shouldn't be afraid to ask more questions. That I am not disturbing or disrupting anyone in doing so. He greatly encouraged me to do this, which is what I will do from now on. I was in fact afraid of being a nuisance that I tried to figure everything out on my own. But now that I know that they don't mind, I shall ask for help much more frequently.
I was very impressed with the difference between boss and underling relationship between the Italian culture and the American one. I felt as if my boss here actually cared more about my personal growth than what I was bringing to the table professionally. Whereas in my working experience in the US it has been the exact opposite. It was a nice change :)
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