So my intership started on Thurdsday! I woke up about 6 to catch my two busses, and get to United Way by 830 for the meeting. I was really nervous about being late. So of course, I got there about 45 too early, just in time to watch the sunrise next to the building. I had no idea what bus stop to get off at since the bus was so packed and I couldn’t really hear anything from the back of the bus. I got so nervous that I’d already missed my stop that I just got off the next time the doors opened, and when I stepped off the bus I saw the building right across the street.

I met all the people in my marketing department- there’s 4, along with many other employees who handle all sorts of different areas. Scott is the guy who initially took me under his wing. He was extremely excited when I noticed his site-mapping covering his walls. Site-mapping a website includes lots of butcher paper and post it notes covering the walls, and he had been a little overwhelmed with being the only person responsible for updating the UW Nashville website. Everyone assured me that I would never be bored.

The first thing that was on the list was the big marketing meeting. On the way down to the meeting, Scott explained to me how United Way works. The Board is a group of volunteers who are all presidents/CEOs of places all around town. Everything runs through them, and they decide who stays and who goes of the UW staff. I was introduced at the meeting, and a reference to Kansas being the middle of nowhere was accidentally used, and then laughed about during the meeting, but for the most part I just tried to pick up on what I had jumped into. The website was a big subject- the issue being how to promote it once the new site is up, as well as a big campaign celebration occurring at the end of the month. It was a big brainstorming meeting with the CEOs and marketing group, and after this meeting there was a post-meeting meeting with just the marketing team to pick out what was good, realistic and do-able.

The marketing team is doing a Biggest Loser competition so we had to move the community scale out of my new cubicle. The computer in my cubicle highly resembled the one I first used in kindergarden. Many things around the building are from the 70’s since pretty much everything was donated. I had a good conversation with Barbara, the in-house graphic designer, how she really respected United Way in its frugality. She said that its kind of refreshing to see the old furnishings and undesigned walls, because so much we see other non-profits whose staff all have thousand dollar chairs and are beautifully decorated inside. It’s nice to hear such a humble outlook, but It is going to be interesting not being surrounded by tons of resources like I’m back at school.

My next day at work wasn’t so perfect. I caught all my busses late and got to work really late. The IT guy couldn’t set my mac up to the network, but he should be able to do it on monday so I can start working. People were a little too busy to delegate any jobs to me, so my day was spent decorating and rearranging my office. Today (saturday) I went to Target and got a lava lamp, a little pot with flowers, and some fragrance reeds. I’ll take a pic of it on monday!