Lessons Learned Interning
Lessons Learned
During the summer and fall of 2014 I spent my time installing and managing a point of sale system as an intern at Fiesta Pizza. While the experience was highly demanding, I also found it to be highly enjoyable. While the project was relatively small in scale, being a part of the process from start to finish gave me a great deal of satisfaction. The internship also taught me a great deal about the importance of proper communication with the people you are working with. I believe this more than any other takeaway will help me tremendously in my future career.
When it came to communicating with coworkers I learned that to get information across when and how you talk to people is sometimes more important than the information you are trying to get across. I found that people were more willing to engage with me when I fit my schedule to the times that was best for them. Asking someone when was best for them as opposed to setting up a time best for you is a small gesture, yet it gave people the feeling of collaboration on the project and that made people more willing to invest in the work. I also found that talking to people one on one was the best way to get someone to truly listen to what you have to say, this was particularly important in training. I found quickly that trying to train someone on something unfamiliar to them while others watched made them hesitant, and more interested in not making mistakes then learning how things worked.
With everything I learned during this internship I believe I made the biggest strides in just being better able to communicate with people in a way that will make them more likely to work with you, and have people understand that this was truly a team endeavor to help them all with their jobs and not just make work.