Intern Diary: Joining the PR team for eight weeks

Teamspirit has opened my eyes to so much in so little time. It can be daunting entering the world of work as a young person, some may refer to it as being a small fish in a big pond. However, my reality as an intern has been completely different from my expectations.

My first day on the job was fantastic, once I made it there! I woke up bright and early, with my heart in the pit of my stomach and a smile plastered on my face, it quickly went downhill from that. From having wardrobe malfunctions in the morning to travelling to the old office to getting soaked by the damp and miserable British weather. It wasn’t great, but once arrived meeting everyone calmed down my nerves significantly. The pressure I had placed on myself dissipated when I met other people that were new or people that like me had not come from a financial services background.

I’d say it’s much easier to put yourself down when you allow factors such as age, gender and race to determine your value. There’s almost this hierarchy of jobs of which young people shouldn’t aim too high too early on because they have nothing to offer, and I believed that to an extent. At times I questioned my role as an intern because the expectations for the nature of work I was doing compared to the actual tasks didn’t marry up…it was fun! I was unsure about how my role was helping people in the company, but as time went on and I picked up more skills and was able to contribute more. I hadn’t realised that just as much as I was learning from the job, I too was adding value I didn’t think I had to the company.

One of the first questions I would ask someone from Teamspirit, upon being introduced to them, was “Why have you chosen to work here?”, and the response I always received was because of the ‘culture’. Prior to this internship all I knew was retail and for most people the reason was it being convenient or for the money, I hadn’t really met people that enjoyed their working environment nor their work. Working at Teamspirit I slowly started to understand what people meant, I worked five days a week as an intern and had a retail Saturday job, but all I could think about on Saturday was what Monday would be like and what tasks I would be doing.

Teamspirit has helped me to value myself as a young woman with aspirations that can most definitely become a reality. There’s so much more to explore, but it just takes a little push and perseverance to do it. From my first day on the job I could have easily quit, but instead of allowing unfortunate circumstances to get me down I knew there was more to Teamspirit that I had yet to discover, and I’m so glad I did.