The lunchroom was a bit emptier then usual. I don’t remember exactly why it was that way. I think it just so happened that a good amount of people were getting late for their lunch, or maybe some were at a meeting. “Are you liking school life or professional life more?”, someone asked. Breaking a silence that stretched slightly too long, but not in an awkward way necessarily, I replied saying “Professional life”.
Why did I say that?
For a few reasons.
If you’re interested in the differences between school and internship life, and would like to hear some advice in regards to work (or at least what I believe I learnt), I’d suggest you’d continue reading.
Now, let’s get back to the question;
“Why did I say that?”
Cause:
I can use my phone
Just like any school, my school forbids phone usage. So being able to use it freely (even needing it) was a pretty major change. Technically we can bring in phones, but these must be handed over to the school and is only returned to the respective kid at the end of the school day. Other then that you can hide it in your bag of course.
In terms of getting used to it this was a small change. I had no problem adjusting to using a phone.
I can drink chai whenever I want to, but I have to make sure its black enough (oh shit I’m racist)
The first few days of my internship I noticed that my coworkers were drinking chai or coffee, but I didn’t give it any thought. Anyways I had no idea where to get the coffee or chai from, and I wasn’t sure if it was acceptable for me to have it (as an intern).
On the 3rd day of my internship the librarian showed me the kitchen. I sat in the library throughout the my time there, so I spent a decent amount of time with him (minus the days he was on leave). There was a tea party on the second day, and from it I learnt that:
1 spoon of powder milk + 1 tea bag = Whitest chai known to man
So the two times I went to get chai during my internship period, I put very little milk. Later my Dadi advised me to have two tea bags to deepen the taste, so I will do that next time I have tea bag chai.
I can get up from my seat whenever I want to
Wow thats crazy.
(Picture of a vase from French National Day)
Canva is a game changer
The MARCOM department had to prepare designs for the Music Fest before the 4 o’clock meeting with Mr. Fabrice. I and another intern (I’ll call her AC lover) were wasting our time watching them work on that. The department head was annoyed at another intern (known as the girly guy intern) for not doing work properly. This was the senario:
A circle sticker was designed in a way that when printed, it could not be cut properly. A simple fix was to make the sticker smaller, so that it does not touch the edges of the canvas or page. Instead of doing this, he was attempting to make the page larger (which is just unnecessarily more work). Seeing this I remarked “Why are you doing it like that, this is easy”. That sentence lead to another, and another until I was seated at the office for the first time and working on multiple Canva designs.
This was a huge deal for me because up until then, I was doing tasks such as adding information to a customer tracking sheet, making Pakistan & France flags, setting up a library station for the National French day event, etc. Now I was in the office (instead of the library) and actively working on a proper(?) task. Apparently I would have been asked to make designs earlier had the department head known I can use Canva.
I can first name adults if they are my coworkers
I don’t like this
Diaries are pretty useful
I thought that people don’t diaries because I don’t see kids in my school use them. In my mind it was an old habit. But here in the office everyone used them. So it looks like people do use it, just that my school enviorment does not (or kids don’t give enough shits about academics to do that).
Lots of mini celebrations and parties
Actually, you do have quite a few events in school. Such as assemblies, competitions, special days (Autism awareness, Pakistan day, etc). The reason I added this in the list is that I didn’t expect an office to do this many celebrations and the nature of the events was different. In my first week there was a tea party and cake cutting for the last day of an intern. Then on the 17th (2nd last day) I also cut a cake for the end of my internship and played ludo. These were more similar to kids spending free lessons or cutting a birthday cake with the class. So I had some fun.
People can be chill and serious about work at the same time
No one was literally working a 9 to 5 and as I just said , we had quite a few celebrations at the office. There were a some times were I would watch other interns not working. Yet everyone would start and end their lunch break timely, finish their work on time and even stay at the office longer to complete tasks. So people do not need to be in a constant grind mindset, rather we should simply get our resonsibilities done and enjoy our time on the side.
(Me playing Ludo & Snake and Ladders with other interns)
Pretending to do work is an essential skill
Not something you’re supposed to say outloud, or advise someone to do but definitely a useful skill. You could work all the time, and be stressed because you have too much on your plate. Or you can do work when it comes to you, and be the person stressed people admire.
Well thats some of the insights and differences I noticed between school and internships/professional life. If you have any advice for me, disagree with what I’ve said or would like to discuss your own experiences, let me know in the comments! If you want to hear about the funny things that happened in this internship, you can check out this blog. And you can see pictures of French National day and the Music Fest on my insta. Bye!