Are we being utilized?

Many of you when thinking about the word "internship" think of slaves in an office. I know that's what I thought. How am I going to survive the morning coffee runs, manual labor, and endless envelopes that need licking? The worst part was I had it in my mind that I was going to absolutely hate the place I worked for, I mean MESA....c'mon?!?!?!?! First let me tell you I feel comfortable enough writing this on here because supervisor and I have developed a friendly relationship and the funny thing is he is following this blog right now. ANYWAYS back to the story, the whole reason I chose this site was because my plans after college decided to collapse 2 weeks before the internship deadline and I frantically scheduled an interview. Funny enough I got a call the very next week asking if I wanted the position. Unsure what was next I took the internship and had peace of mind....for the moment. After being offered the position I needed to have all my paper work filled out and this is where I started getting negative feelings about this internship site. It took me 2.5 weeks to finally get a hold of my now supervisor, TWO DAYS before all of the paperwork had to be submitted, talk about almost heart-attack. My parents would not have enjoyed the conversation about how I am going to take the summer off to enjoy my graduation and start an internship in the Fall...YA RIGHT!!! When I arrived to my first day on the job I was nervous, excited, and I tried to have a positive attitude that this internship would open doors for me in the future. If I would have judged that last statement on my first day on the job I would have been DEAD WRONG!!!

I spent the WHOLE day looking through a visitors guide magazine, no one talked to me, I surfed the web, I sat in a 2 hour long meeting and had no idea what was being discussed, still no one talked to me.......and then I had lunch break. I was bored out of my mind, my previous job at the hotel was very fast paced and hectic and when I arrived here, one of the assistants told me to just hang out because it was super busy and Ill learn the ropes the next day. Busy? Not one phone rang, not one person walked into the office, I was a bit confused because Hotel Busy is like unorganized chaos.

Luckily I came back the next day and the next day and the next day, and then found out I'd be working all week long at a NCAA Baseball Tournament. Are you kidding me it was like a gift from God himself. Being an ex-ball player this was like heaven. I get to spend 15 hours in the beating sun and watch baseball. To most people this would be fun for 2 hours but I constantly stayed 8 9 or 10 hours overtime working from 8am-midnight on 3 consecutive occasions. I worked directly with the Director of the tournament, the conference, and the Stadium. It was almost like I was running the two clubhouses. This was an unbelievable experience for me, not only did I make some serious connections with people who I would not mind working with in the future, but I gained valuable event management experience.

In the end I realized that I had made the right decision with the internship I chose. It allowed me to realize that I want to shift my future goals away from the hotel and hospitality industry and more towards sales and events. I did not even know that there was such a thing as Sports Tourism Companies but after the first two weeks I have proved myself very valuable to people within these types of companies. What I am trying to say is that while I am unsure if I would want to continue within a CVB in the future, I do want to pursue sales and sports tourism.

This story was solely composed for comical relief to all interns that are stuck licking envelopes.