From Schoolroom to Workroom

Job:

My internship has been at the Krimson Kultuur store in Pittsburg, KS. We don’t really have a formal job title for any of the interns, but we all have our own qualifications for being there. Most of the work I have done has been graphic oriented with a little bit of writing and a major focus on being able to use technology. There’s also been the expectation to work in the store and demonstrate knowledge of the store items to customers.

Qualifications:

•  Quick learner – the store uses register software called Square through an iPad. On my first day, I was given a brief rundown of the system, and then I was expected to be able to work the store by myself shortly afterwards.
•  Independent worker – the store is run almost exclusively by interns, so interns end up making most of the major decisions and deciding how branding occurs. There is an expectation for you to bring ideas to the meetings and work on these plans in your free time.
•  Team player – meetings happen each week with interns and the intern supervisor. This is where the plans for each week are created. To have these meetings and goals run smoothly, you need to be able to work well within a group.
•  Concise writer – I have had to revise some store procedures and write info cards for some of our national/international vendors. In each of these cases, I needed to convey information in a limited amount of space, so the ability for clear and concise writing is a must.
•  Graphically inclined – I have created the design for the store’s business cards and info cards. With each of these I created the layouts, manipulated the KK logo to fit my design, and provided the info within the card. Knowing the principles of design and being able to apply them to your work is mandatory for the internship work I have done.
•  Technologically savvy – I have used a wide array of software during my time at the store. Programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Word, and Excel are all things a person should be able to use.
•  Researcher – for each of the vendors in the store, an intern should be able to look them up and find information about their products. This is essential to knowing why we are selling the items in the store. People are more inclined to buy something if they understand the significance of the item.
•  Internet capable – I have also had to edit the store’s Weebly website. This means I needed to be able to quickly learn a new technology, as previously stated, and have a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.

In Chris Anson and Lee Forsberg’s “Moving Beyond the Academic Community,” they talk about the four stages an intern goes through known as expectation, disorientation, transition, and resolution. I would say I went through all of these in a very short manner of time. My expectations going into the internship were that I would be more heavily focused on technical writing with many little writing tasks assigned to me, but instead I was given more graphical tasks to complete. The freedom given with these tasks was somewhat disorienting because I was the sole architect. Very little input or suggestion was given as to how the documents should look. They were very trusting. It felt largely different from receiving a school assignment. With school assignments, you are at least given the specifications of the task and usually explained how to achieve them, but in this instance, I just had to make it up as I went along. It didn’t take long for me to realize my place in the store. When we needed something designed or written, it was simply my job to figure out the specifications and execute them properly.

The organizational hierarchy in the store can be confusing at first. There isn’t just one person with power. All of us were on equal footing. A definition of power by R. M. Kanter defines power as “the capacity to mobilize people and resources to get things done.” This is something that all of us interns shared. We each created goals and plans and assigned tasks to get these carried out. While our intern supervisor would technically be called our boss, she was present with a very hands-off approach. She would give suggestions for things that needed to be done, and we figured out the execution of the tasks or found our own tasks that needed to be done.