Corporate World 101One of the most exciting and interesting times of my life have started this summer, when I received a job (summer internship position) offer from a large consumer electronics company. With my Junior year behind me, I felt completely clueless of what the corporate world is like. Many questions terrified me and made me feel far from at ease. How would I fit in? What would I do? Which skill (out of my most random skill set) would I be able to apply and further develop? And in the most dreadfully whispering voice I can imagine: what if I fail to display my competence?
Confusion DissipatesTwo weeks went by, and while many if not most of my questions are left unanswered, I slowly started to put the pieces together in my head. I now realize that it's not very a simple system to understand, and for someone as clueless as I am (and probably the rest of the interns I work with), it takes time to adapt. Of course, the quicker the adaptation phase ends, the quicker I can start to understand which skills I can start developing.
Workflow StabilizesSo far, I've gone through some technical training, did some random small projects, and even made some awkward mistakes. Thanks to all these, I have started to remember faces and names , get a general idea of where everything is, who everyone are, how to do or how not do something, what is appropriate and what is not, etc. To be honest, I didn't expect to be able to stuff so much of this stuff into my brain so quickly. I hope I don't fry the thing.
Culture
Due to an obvious and fairly valid internal reason, this company employs almost half of it's workers from a foreign race with way too many cultural differences. Up to half of the conversations I hear around myself every day are in another language of which I possess exactly zero percent of fluency. Most of the foreignly-themed interactions between these coworkers are happening right in front of me, and it makes me feel as if I am located in their country. It's a unique and fascinating experience. If this is not the best opportunity I will ever have to learn about their culture and language, then I don't know when is. It really makes me wonder if this is the third undecided language that I've always wanted to study (it could certainly help me better communicate with my coworkers, knowing how important communication is for a strong company).
RacismHaving about half of the employees from another specific race, as well as several minority workers, I had observed how an unpleasant dose of racism (and excessive foul language) is steadily oozing from the company's HR department's unavoidable loopholes and transforms into eerie tension between coworkers. If I am not subconsciously figuring out some sort of plan to fix this issue, then I truly feel bad for my wicked soul's final destination.
Fast Forward
I think that this journey have started splendidly, with many bumps and moments of accomplishment to come. As many of my questions are being answered, many more appear, but in a more organized way with a somewhat predictable outcome direction. I don't know if I'll end up being a good fit for the corporate world, but that's precisely why I am here right now -- to find out exactly just that. With nothing to lose and with everything to gain, I march on forward with the rest of us. Good luck and godspeed.
