Not even the chocolate kind

This summer I'm interning for the Corporate Communications team at Turner Broadcasting. It's very neat. I get to work in the CNN Center and do the behind-the-scenes work for the internal and external Turner websites.

So I'm learning a ton of new things. Mostly how to master all things Adobe (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator), but also some life lessons.

As a precursor, I really like this internship. Mostly because they let me learn whatever I want in my free time and they encourage me to seek out anything I'm interested in. But in an effort to translate the general experience of this internship, I offer you this metaphor that I have come to quote painfully often:

There was a guy who wanted to be a master chef. So he went to apprentice in some great kitchen where he could practice his wonderful chef skills. The head chef told him that he had to thinly slice hundreds of potatoes into very skinny wafers. The man spent days and days slicing the potatoes just so, and when the head chef saw that he had finished, he threw all the potato slices in the trash.

The apprentice asked why he would do that when he had spent days slicing them perfectly. And the head chef said, "Because you'll actually be slicing these," presenting him with truffles (you know, the really expensive ones that pigs dig up).

And so, if you're catching my drift, I've been slicing potatoes. But hey, I'm learning how to slice correctly, and I intend to be the best slicer ever by the time I'm handed truffles.

The ups and downs of summerhood (but mostly ups)

The best way I know to do a catch up post is via pictures. So that is what we'll do since I've been neglecting the 'Luff for way too long now. Last time I posted I had just finished school and was about to head back to Atlanta for the summer: unemployed and open for suggestions.

Right when I got back I got to watch this guy graduate from Georgia Tech after a mere five years with his industrial engineering degree.

Although I'm a UGA girl through and through, I will brag on Tech for a second because Wall Street just named them the Number 1 engineering school in the nation.  That's decent I guess.

But I still got a little pleasure out of these people who were dressed in red and black for whatever reason.

A week after the graduation we headed to the Bahamas to celebrate on a cruise! 

Since then I've been busy doing really important things.

Like fishing.

And letting my friends give me and my mom fake tattoos.

She's the coolest.

And, on a not-so-fun note, I finally got allergy tested.

21 shots in my arms and a bunch of grids with needles pressed into my back. And guess what I'm allergic to? (HINT: I've had allergies throughout my life with no idea what the cause is.)

Answer: DOGS.

I am allergic to dogs! That is terrible news. I love dogs. I want a gaggle of them. I want to use puppies as a duvet when I have my own place. But it makes a good amount of sense, seeing that I've lived with dogs forever and my allergies get worse when I'm home.

PHOOEY.

But, alas, I have landed a summer internship! So that's better news. I'll be working in corporate communications for Turner Broadcasting (TBS)! I'm pumped cause it sounds like the work is right up my alley. Chances are pretty good that I'll have more ridiculous intern stories to share soon, I start in a week. CNN Center, here I come!

A-head of the game

It's my last week of work before I move up to Chapel Hill to start my new life. And it's very bittersweet. I have lots of words to share about my internship, but they're probably too mushy and serious so we'll just talk about Chaz.

I mentioned earlier that a huge part of my internship-humbling-process has been carrying weird things. Or just things in weird shapes, unfailingly things that are hard to carry. Yesterday I think (hope) I maxed out the weirdness.

As an awkward-appetizer, I had to first wheel a cart-load of boxes full of books down to my boss's car. Which would have been fine, but our office cart was being used, so I had to use the tax department's cart.

This cart has proven itself to be an enemy in the past, and yesterday was a battle that I most definitely lost. These carts have four swiveling wheels. Or they're supposed to. The tax department cart only has THREE swiveling wheels. The front right wheel does not swivel. Which makes turning left extremely difficult.

Not only that, but after six boxes of books were stacked on the cart, it would have been hard to turn left WITH a swiveling wheel. So as I ride down the elevator, I look at my watch and realize that it's 11:30, prime lunch time in my building. As the elevator doors open to the first floor, my fears are confirmed that not only do I have to turn left out of the elevator, I have an audience.

I basically end up grunting and heaving and trying to lift the right side of the cart to two-wheel it into a left turn, which naturally fails horribly- leaving the crowd in awe and a few books strewn on the floor.

I picked them up and scurried out of the elevator bank, head down.


Now in terms of embarrassment, that might take the cake for the day. But in terms of carrying awkward things, Chaz does.

As part of a presentation that I'm running today, I have to demonstrate a wearable computer. It pretty much looks like a super fancy headset.



You say commands and it opens folders in the little screen under your eye and then you can tilt your head up and down to scroll through a document. It's very cool. And very expensive.

So yesterday I had to go get it and learn how to use it in order to demonstrate it today. I also had to get the accesories for it. Which include: a battery charger, an SDcard and holder, a carrying case, and... a mannequin head. SAY WHAT?

Yes, friends, yesterday and today part of my job is to carry around a mannequin head. Not only around the office, but the presentation is at Mercer, so in about 20 minutes I'll leave the office to carry said head around Atlanta.

Now I decided to name the head Chaz because he looks like a young fellow. And he has incredible bone structure. And I don't like the idea of carrying a stranger's head around so he needed a name.

So if you're looking for Intern Cindy today, I'll be the one walking through the Mercer campus carrying a mannequin head and wearing a headset computer, yelling "OPEN MY DOCUMENTS!"

Humble Beginnings

Today I broke the printer. To the point where neither I, nor one of my coworkers, nor the tech guy, nor the print shop guy could fix it. So we've had to call Xerox and have them send a technician out. He'll be here sometime in the next 48 hours. Luckily only about 12 people use this printer, printing hundreds of sheets a day, using this exact machine for all their printing needs.

UGH.

So after I rolled my eyes and laughed that I had done yet another intern thing, I started to explain to the tech guy some of the other "Intern Moments" I've had in the last nine weeks. Here is a sample:


I am ALWAYS carrying something strangely shaped and hard to hold. I carried a gigantic orchid up from the mail room in such a way that I had to peer through the stalks to see where I was going. There were stares.

I accidentally turned off a fancy-pants manager's light on the way out of his office, leaving him sitting in the dark.

I rolled a cart out to my boss's car to get "a huge bucket" just to find out it was one small empty tub. I looked extremely weak rolling it back in on a cart.

I regularly trip trying to walk in heels, fell into a guy one time and he thought I had broken my ankle. (This came just minutes after I was asked if I was a model, and was feeling pretty high and mighty. I imagine it was God's way of knocking me off my high horse.)

If you walk through the badge-swipey-things without swiping your badge it alarms at you. This gets tricky when you push a cart through AND try to walk through. Multiple times I've had to do something similar to the electric slide to shuffle my way through the sensors without setting the alarms off. Still haven't been successful.

My new shoes get air pockets in them when I walk so it makes very un-ladylike sounds. I suspect there may be a viral email that the new intern has the walking farts.

Went in to make coffee one day and somehow the Keurig machine just started spewing water everywhere. Naturally 3 people walked in right then as I was panicking and dodging the boiling spray.

I thought I broke the copier cause it wasn't printing in color and tried to fix it for like 15 minutes before asking someone and being told it's only black and white.


I come home every day with a different story, so I'm sure I've left most of them out. It's a humbling experience, being an intern. Hopefully this will help me to work with interns someday when I'm in my big girl job.

22 going on 30?

Today I got asked how long I'd been married. When I responded, "Oh, I'm not married. I'm only 22," I was met with a sentence of terror:

"I thought you were like 30."


This working thing must really be getting to me.

True Life: I'm an Intern

Day two on the job:

Conquered the electric hole punch (plugged it in).

Tried to make coffee with the Keurig machine but instead ended up with a cup of hot milk.

Took 20 minutes to turn on my computer, then asked for help just to find I needed to push the power button.

The irony of the fact that I work in IT does not escape me.