As I approach my last week working in Ashoka I am reflecting a lot on my time here. I have had to adapt to a lot of different situations and communication styles abroad. I think my office has been an interesting experience because it is a mix of hybrid and in person work. My company is also very trusting so I feel the experience at Ashoka might have been different than a typical Czech work environment. Before I came to the Czech Republic, we discussed how feedback is often very direct and employers expect the intern to take initiative with tasks that are sometimes unclear. I feel I had the opposite experience at Ashoka. Both of my supervisors were super lenient and open to any and all questions I had about my work. They communicated with me as if I was an equal and gave clear and polite feedback.
My bosses communicate with me very casually. Usually we talk on WhatsApp and use text to keep updated. My supervisors are both relatively young so I think this is the new generation’s way of keeping in touch about work. I prefer it to email because I feel I get more done when I can be less formal with my bosses and ask direct questions without the fluff of a business email.
There was one minor mis-communication that had me in a bit of hot water. Last week, both my bosses received an email from another Ashoka employee stating that after multiple attempts of her trying to work with me, I had been unco-operative. She stated her team made major advancements on the project I was working on despite my lack of help. This was an uncomfortable situation as she had made no attempts of communicating with me or asking for my assistance on her project. Luckily I was able to talk with both of my bosses and present my case showing the lack of outreach, and surprisingly both of them were very supportive of me and even defended me in their email responses. I think this was surprising as this woman was a higher up in the company and I am an intern, but my bosses took the time to hear me out and support me. They explained that sometimes in a corporate environment unfair situations of leadership blaming interns for a mistake they themselves made can happen and should not be tolerated. This situation was very nerve racking for me as I did not want to leave my job with a bad reputation. Luckily the situation was resolved through direct and clear communication with my bosses and I am thankful they established this line of communication between us.
Outside of work my friends and I took our last weekend trip! We went to Barcelona, Spain. I actually studied abroad in Barcelona last summer and it is one of my favorite cities in the world. I was able to plan a cool itinerary for me and my friends by hitting all the highlights. Due to the global IT outage my flight was severely delayed on friday and I ended up taking-off seven hours later than the scheduled time. This was unfortunate as I missed a lot of the plan for Friday. My friends still got to see Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia which are some of the highlights. For dinner we had one of my favorite meals, Honest Greens, and walked around the city as it is always very lively. Despite the flight delays, we made the most of our time on Saturday and hit the beach.
Since Prague does not have an ocean nearby, Barceloneta was the perfect place to spend our saturday. The water was warm and crystal clear. We spent the day on the beach and went to a local Italian place for fresh sandwiches for lunch. Around sunset, we took a short cruise with live music on the water. It was so nice being on the ocean before heading back to the states. For dinner, we did like the Spaniards and ate around 10:00 pm. We shared a seafood paella and it was delicious. The seafood was really fresh and I liked the shared atmosphere of dinners in spain.
As we headed back to Prague for the final time I had mixed emotions. On the one hand I am excited to go home and see my family before heading back to Pitt, but I am also really going to miss my life here. I am looking forward to doing as much as possible in my last four days in the Czech Republic.
