Week 6: All About Culture

From the very beginning of this internship, I could tell that Addison Whitney’s company culture is pretty relaxed, but still engaging. The first day of the internship, we all had lunch brought in from Panera and we talked about the silliest things, specifically Justin Beiber and how Calvin Harris and T-Swift had just broken up. It was definitely an unexpected topic of conversation for me (not really sure exactly what I was expecting though) but pretty refreshing knowing that the office and employees could talk casually like friends.

The office has an extremely open layout – no one is in a enclosed cubicle. You can talk to others from your seat or just walk up to someone; it’s very welcoming. In fact, it’s pretty normal to hear people cracking jokes from row to row or even being sneaky and throwing a soccer ball across the rows (it’s soft, no harm done!)

The only employees who have offices are the consultants and they usually have their doors open anyway. I am a really big fan of the layout and how open it is, it makes me feel more comfortable in general, but also less afraid to ask questions or simply talk to others.

This week was an extremely productive week. I’d have to say a highlight of mine was kicking off my own name validation research project. I officially now have work that I can call my own (but of course lots of help and guidance was given by my supervisor). I created the questionnaire for this project and sent it to be programmed by one of AW’s vendors, SERMO. After programming, I will get to test the programmed survey and then it will be sent out into the field for data collection. I’m pretty excited (and maybe a little nervous) to see how I manage and handle this project!