As I come to the end of week 3 here in Stockholm, I wanted to reflect on what I have learned about problem solving in my workplace. I have mentioned in a previous post that this is my first official internship. I have only had one other minor internship in high school, and I worked at that company for just a couple weeks because of a program for high school seniors. So, I honestly had no idea what to expect in terms of workload.
I see in movies how interns are depicted as irrelevant workers at the lowest ranking in the office hierarchy. Often seen getting everyone’s coffee orders, or performing other irrelevant tasks that are not in your job description, my intern standards were low and I was full of skepticism. I knew the movies exaggerated it for the drama, but I also knew that Sweden’s workplaces are very different from America.
On my first day my boss told me that, sure he is the CEO, and sure I am an intern, but there is no real office hierarchy. He also said that I will most definitely not be getting office coffees (despite the Swedes love for it). So at that point I was thinking I was going to be doing even harder work than I originally thought, which made me even more nervous!
In my first week I quickly realized that he was correct, I was not going to be doing unimportant tasks. But, he left out a key detail that direction was going to be very limited as well. I had very little idea of what in the world he wanted me to start working on, and our communication time was short and sparse due to the fact that he is the CEO, juggling loads of other time consuming projects. So, I learned to take initiative, while still upholding my responsibility as an intern to follow the company’s needs and wishes.
For me, this looked like a lot of creating documents, detailing what I was working on, and making executive decisions where I could. I am usually someone who follows directions to a T, but when there are no directions to follow, you kind of have to improvise. I started working on things he had mentioned the company needed on my first day such as advertising materials, graphics, and what projects I could help the company with.
By the end of my first week, I had a whole document detailing project proposals based on the limited information I had, and then I presented these to my boss when he had a free moment. He ended up really appreciating the fact I stepped up, acknowledging the lack of direction without explicitly stating it. He told me to focus on an Instagram re-launch campaign first, so that’s what I did during week 2, making decisions where I could, but checking in with him once and a while to make sure I was still on the right track.
I really had to learn how to advocate for myself while maintaining the office balance and not requesting help from my boss 24/7. I also had to learn how to take criticism and use it to edit and make my work better rather than taking offense. When I would request to show him something that I had done and he didn’t inherently like it, my first reaction was to take it personally and become upset. If he didn’t give me specific directions, how could he be picky about the outcome of the work? But, in Sweden, they do not “compliment sandwich” you like in America. Their feedback is often only where you need to change something, which can become disheartening to someone like me who is not used to this. However, I have learned to overcome this and implement the changes.
The whole process of working in this type of environment has created some real challenges, but it has also taught me how to overcome them. I have been working on my skills to be a better intern and am learning so much about the work I am doing, the country I am staying in, and people I have met. As much as I get frustrated sometimes about the lack of direction, it has really just made me a better employee and set me up for future careers.
Until next time!