Week 5: Progress

The office has finally calmed down enough to where I can start projects. For the past few weeks, everyone’s energy has been focused on WasteExpo and my supervisors haven’t had enough time to train me in everything or give me long-term projects. So far, I have been doing interesting work but in small doses. For instance, I write a lot of promotional copy for our social media sites. I have prior experience in this, so the task was not demanding. But I had never written a post for LinkedIn, so tweaking the language to fit the website’s feel was new. Since my daily morning task remains unchanged, I have mastered Daily Clips, which I am quite proud of. In fact, the highlight of my week was when our Vice President emailed my supervisors congratulating them on a great Daily Clips and they referred him to me, saying I did all the work. It was comforting to hear positive feedback, especially unbiased praise, since he did not know I made the Clips.

Helping plan the Symposium was not as exciting as I thought it would be, which surprised me. I love planning events in my life such as parties, trips, and get-togethers. I research the smallest detail and double-check everything. But, I was told to accomplish a list of tasks without a lot of information. For instance, I called the venue to double check that all the logistics were in place, but the guy started asking all these questions that I did not have answers to. I had to refer him to my supervisor, and that made me feel like I was inadequate at my job. I came to realize formatting is not my forte, as designing, creating, and making the nametags and programs took a long time and was frustrating. But, my supervisors were all in Vegas for WasteExpo during the majority of the time, so I could not seek much help in person. I have learned that I will not always have the answers to everything, and it is perfectly okay to ask for help.