Week 7 was a slower week in the office at Casey Kennedy and my workload was a little less than usual. A decent amount of my co-workers had fallen ill so a lot of the days it was just 3 or 5 people in the office than the usual 8. Monday I was on appointments with my co-worker Eliza. We went to a unit we manage with around 6 different apartments. We had to let the tenants know about the fire safety and that we’re putting in new smoke detectors and bringing in new fire extinguishers into the building. I went door to door in the unit notifying the tenants and also passing them flyers letting them know about the changes happening and if they had any questions to email us or speak to my co-worker Eliza. It was really nice to get out of the office just because Monday’s can be really slow in the office and you want to also enjoy the weather sometimes when it’s sunny in Dublin. 90 percent of my day was out of the office when I had gotten back I took my one hour lunch break and then worked for 1 more hour just sending out lead emails to potential clients. I will say there are a lot of variety of tasks in my internship. Some days I will be in the office working on excel sheets and financial reports and then the next day I could be out in the city dealing with property management. My favorite part of the job is going out in the city and dealing with the property management. I will say it’s not something I want to do in the future but it is very interesting to learn about that side of business within our company. When I had joined Casey Kennedy Estate agents I honestly thought it was going to be more based on sales and working with sales agents but in Dublin I learned the money is in property and block management. Tuesday my co-worker James who is a rising sales agent sent me an email that he was ill and had asked if I could send emails to leads that used our valuation tool in the last few months. So all Tuesday I sent emails to potential clients which wasn’t too bad. It was interesting to see where our potential clients were coming from. I got a decent amount of responses in a short time but I sent around 100 emails that day so I did feel drained at the end of the day. Our program always hosts a pub quiz at University College Dublin’s campus club house which is like trivia so I decided to join my roommates that day for it. I had a great time and it was nice to spend time with other students in the program after a draining day of work. I went back to the office the next day and I was doing a lot of excel for my co-worker Aoife. I was designing a sheet for her to access that could help her know which tenants had paid rent at the property she managed down the road where she has around 20 different tenants. I was glad I got to practice my excel skills with this sheet because I feel like I am starting to get a lot better at working on excel sheets in a professional setting. My supervisor Janet had been sick today so I was only in the office for 4 hours instead of the usual 6 hours I work. Thursday had been another half day for me and then I spent the weekend in Barcelona. It was amazing. I got to see famous castles, churches, and visit the beach. I am so grateful for all the opportunities Europe has for travel. I was able to go from Dublin to Barcelona on just a 2 hour flight for only 200 USD. This was definitely one of the most vibrant cities I have ever been to and it was such a great time.
While in Ireland, I have noticed some minimal differences in communication styles, particularly in various accents and some terminology and phrases that are not utilized in the U.S. One of my supervisors, Alan, who is Scottish, has such an accent that it can be hard to follow at different times, particularly if either of us are speaking quickly (which is often during the busy time of the day!). To handle this perspective, I have developed a habit of asking Alan or anyone else to confirm with an email so I can keep up with what was asked. As well, I find it helpful to ask clarifying questions right away, which my team has been great at supporting. Most communication has happened without too much complication; certainly there are infrequent issues, but since everyone speaks English and the nuances of communication styles from the U.S. is not extreme, communication hasn’t been too difficult.
