So I’m what, a little over a month in? I come in here as an intern a little over a month ago as nothing more than a college student looking for some experience. My first shot ever at a little white-collar office experience as I’m about to finish college. I’m only working here two days a week out of a six day work week, so I expected to just be getting a cool little thing to put down on my resume. Boy, was I wrong.
Everyone finds their niche. Apparently I found mine pretty fast, because while I beg for simple mindless work just to keep me occupied in my other internship for this summer, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m doing extra work from home for Worx because I’ve got so much to do. Lemme tell you how this whole thing went down:
Week 1: Get settled in, get payroll in place, typical day one stuff. Meet with upper management, Mr. Gugliotti tells me I’m gonna be doing some work for his friend Gary for their sketch comedy group called Ruthless Spectator since I have experience in YouTube. Go on a short conference call with Gary where they explain what they do and kinda outline that I’m gonna be helping out in whatever way I can. Mostly just brainstorming tweets and trying to help out on social media, simple stuff.
Week 2: Run through all of Ruthless Spectator’s social media, go through its YouTube channel, present to Gary about upping popularity through YouTube by crunching YouTube analytics numbers for several hours and referencing my own work. Begin a plan of attack for how to expand Ruthless Spectator’s viewership, begin planning advertising strategies.
Week 3: Begin making video thumbnails for Ruthless Spectator videos, get called in for a meeting in person with Mr. Gugliotti and Gary to discuss potential marketing strategies. Ride in a Maserati and get treated to lunch. Get informed on a new animation project we’re gonna be working on called Doctor Mantis which I’d have to market later. Create a Reddit ad for Ruthless Spectator and prepare to launch it. Create a huge list of media outlets to send our videos to in the hopes it might get published.
Week 4: Launch the Reddit ad. Find out that our YouTube music videos have been claimed by record companies for copyright. Research copyright and fair use law and dispute the company’s claim through legal argumentation. Get asked to work that Saturday on one of their shoots. Accept the offer.
Week 4 Saturday: Meet the entire Ruthless Spectator crew. Includes a former head writer of SNL, a Vegas standup comedian, a bunch of actors, and a few other people with their own Wikipedia pages. I was the slate guy for a bit (the really important person who clicks that board together at the beginning of each take), created part of the set, and even made a few suggestions for the acting/writing. The kicker is that now they’ve invited me to help with their shoot for a Lenovo commercial in New York City.
Week 5: And here I am right now, compiling a huge list of animated film festivals for the Doctor Mantis project, getting ready to launch a few more ads, creating more thumbnails, and now I even gotta make a teaser trailer for them. I may still be an intern and I may be getting Paid Minimum Wage, but I sure feel like I’m earning my spot here.
What do I expect to get out of this? I came in to just get something to jot down on my resume. Just a little experience to write down when I apply for a job in the future. But then it occurred to me, I’m legitimately building my career. Suddenly I’m reporting to an Emmy award winner, an SNL writer, stuff like that. And I figured hey, maybe if I go above and beyond with Ruthless Spectator I can do a little extra work for them while I’m back at school and never have to work at a dining hall again. I might be getting paid minimum wage, but what I do feels important. The people I work for feels important. There is truly no greater rush than getting home from work and thinking “I’m legitimately working my way up the ladder”.
