Hi everyone, welcome to week 4!
On Sunday me and a couple of friends took the dart to a coastal town called Bray. Our adventure started as soon as we got off the bus and into where the dart station was supposed to be. According to Google Maps, after getting off the bus, we were supposed to be a five minute walk away from the station but after walking around the area multiple times we were still not able to find it. While trying to find the station a very nice elderly woman saw our group looking very lost and gave us directions to the dart. Google Maps was trying to send us to the opposite direction! After that, the trip went smoothly. As soon as we got to Bray, we walked along the beach – the water was very cold! It is so nice to be able to take the public transport and be by the seaside in less than two hours. After exploring the beach for a bit, we went to a restaurant and got chips and seafood. While at the restaurant we decided to go on a walk to Bray Head, a place known to provide amazing views of the town and the shoreline. We thought it was going to be a nice, easy walk but it turned out to be a very steep hike- which I would not recommend doing in boots with heels and a purse. Despite being very unprepared to do a hike, it was an amazing experience. During our way up we sang songs, met very nice people and got to see amazing views of the town, it was definitely worth the climb.
After our amazing trip work awaited the next day. On Monday everyone at the company was working on analyzing the submissions we had gotten for our awards program. We started prescreening all the submissions by categories to make sure all of them were fully anonymized and that they were submitted in the correct category. Despite it being a long task that had to be done quickly due to the timeline we had set, it was really fun because of the work environment in the office. I feel very fortunate to have such an amazing work environment and such nice and hardworking co-workers. Everyone is extremely diligent and at the same time very easygoing and welcoming. Over the past couple of weeks everyone in the office, but especially the interns, have gotten to know each other better, which has made work an even more enjoyable experience.
In addition to working on the submissions, we also got the chance to help with inventory, which, surprisingly, was very fun. While counting merchandise to see what extra items would need to be ordered for the Summit that the company organizes at the end of each year, I ended up counting rubber ducks. Rubber ducks are the company’s mascot and, as we were counting them, me my coworkers had an idea. We decide that a fun way we could create engaging online content for the company’s social media page and, at the same time, plan a fun surprise for our supervisor who had been away at a conference was by making a prank and recording it. With a plan in mind, we got started right away. We created a path with rubber ducks leading from the end of the staircase all the way to our supervisor’s desk. Our plan was to position the ducks and then see his reaction as he walked into the office, but things didn’t exactly go as planed. While we were hoping to see his reaction, he was only able to come into the office on the next day. He got there early and found our surprise before anyone else was there, so we didn’t get a chance to record it but he told us that he found the prank very funny and even recorded the path he found and sent it in our work group chat. The work environment here is very different then in the US, and it took a little getting used to, especially because of the more informal workplace, but it has been an enriching experience. In addition to helping us get to know each other better, the company’s smaller size allows us to get more involved in different areas of the company – from assisting with content creation to helping in data analysis – which has also has been very interesting and it has taught me a lot.
Can’t wait to see what this next week will bring!