Final Reflection
The internship I did for my senior year is work as an office assistant for my parents company, Prestige AC LLC. My original internship was at Maui Huliau but I couldn’t handle meeting online three days a week, so my mom offered me an internship. This was more of a work-at-home, since there is a business office at the house and I worked under my mom as her assistant. When I first got offered this job, I was excited to know what it feels like to work in an office even though it wasn't surrounded with as many people as a regular corporate office would.
What I originally set out to learn when I began this internship was to learn how to stay organized. This is a skill that I lack and I was hoping I could build that. Another thing that I was hoping to learn in this internship was how to run an office. I have been thinking about how I would like to have a business of my own in the future and would like to know what a business needs in order to run.
During the four months I worked, I was given tasks very similar to what an assistant in a movie does. I did coffee runs, client invoices as well as their receipts, bank runs, payroll, and taxes. I also created folders per client with their old and new jobs that the business did with them, and put all the information about that job in the clients folder. All these tasks needed to be done in a specific order so to make sure I finished everything that was due that week, I set specific days for what needed to be done. Monday was payroll and staying up to date on taxes. Wednesday was for updating client folders. Friday was bank runs and cleaning the office.
My number one takeaway from this entire internship experience is working in an office isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. This could have been because I was working with my mother but I quite enjoyed having everything having a schedule and extremely organized. I didn't find anything wrong with working at an office. Yes, everything's the same everyday but it's quite comforting knowing what you're going to do.
The first twenty century skill that I used frequently and grew was my financial, Economic, and Business Literacy skills. The best way to understand what keeps a business running and what makes it successful, is to see it in an economic perspective. Since the business focuses on AC, I had to research the demand and supply of AC units, the prices per unit, as well as the price for one job. Another skill I used was my communication skills. I had to stay in contact with my dad and see what type of job he did and see if it was a new or existing customer so that I can add it to the folder. I also had to stay in contact with my mom so that she can give the tasks to me and ask her any questions that come up while I do those tasks. The last skill I used was self directional skills. Since I do have to do much of the work myself, I had to find a way that helped me complete everything before the due dates. The way that showed the best outcome was giving myself pep talks. I found this encouraging and also gave me the confidence to complete more tasks.
The goal I achieved during my internship was to learn how to stay organized. The way I met my goal was scheduling all assignments and tasks that needed to be done. I also had a separate binder for everything like taxes and payroll. This helped not to overstress on things as well as work on my time management. I also found inspiration watching organization videos and that helped me stay organized in the office.
The most valuable aspect of this experience is that it gave me the positive perspective of what working at an office job is like. Many people who work at an office can say many things like its boring or too chaotic, but if you have a system and a friend in the office, nothing can be boring. The greatest challenge was filing taxes. It's something new for me but after watching my boss do it and after filing employee taxes every week, I finally got a system. It became easier and now I am on my way to filing business taxes. The way this experience helped me prepare for my life after high school is getting a glimpse of what a “nine to five” office job looks like. Although I haven't worked 9am-5pm yet, I know what is expected of an individual if I do end up in a corporate job.
What I originally set out to learn when I began this internship was to learn how to stay organized. This is a skill that I lack and I was hoping I could build that. Another thing that I was hoping to learn in this internship was how to run an office. I have been thinking about how I would like to have a business of my own in the future and would like to know what a business needs in order to run.
During the four months I worked, I was given tasks very similar to what an assistant in a movie does. I did coffee runs, client invoices as well as their receipts, bank runs, payroll, and taxes. I also created folders per client with their old and new jobs that the business did with them, and put all the information about that job in the clients folder. All these tasks needed to be done in a specific order so to make sure I finished everything that was due that week, I set specific days for what needed to be done. Monday was payroll and staying up to date on taxes. Wednesday was for updating client folders. Friday was bank runs and cleaning the office.
My number one takeaway from this entire internship experience is working in an office isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. This could have been because I was working with my mother but I quite enjoyed having everything having a schedule and extremely organized. I didn't find anything wrong with working at an office. Yes, everything's the same everyday but it's quite comforting knowing what you're going to do.
The first twenty century skill that I used frequently and grew was my financial, Economic, and Business Literacy skills. The best way to understand what keeps a business running and what makes it successful, is to see it in an economic perspective. Since the business focuses on AC, I had to research the demand and supply of AC units, the prices per unit, as well as the price for one job. Another skill I used was my communication skills. I had to stay in contact with my dad and see what type of job he did and see if it was a new or existing customer so that I can add it to the folder. I also had to stay in contact with my mom so that she can give the tasks to me and ask her any questions that come up while I do those tasks. The last skill I used was self directional skills. Since I do have to do much of the work myself, I had to find a way that helped me complete everything before the due dates. The way that showed the best outcome was giving myself pep talks. I found this encouraging and also gave me the confidence to complete more tasks.
The goal I achieved during my internship was to learn how to stay organized. The way I met my goal was scheduling all assignments and tasks that needed to be done. I also had a separate binder for everything like taxes and payroll. This helped not to overstress on things as well as work on my time management. I also found inspiration watching organization videos and that helped me stay organized in the office.
The most valuable aspect of this experience is that it gave me the positive perspective of what working at an office job is like. Many people who work at an office can say many things like its boring or too chaotic, but if you have a system and a friend in the office, nothing can be boring. The greatest challenge was filing taxes. It's something new for me but after watching my boss do it and after filing employee taxes every week, I finally got a system. It became easier and now I am on my way to filing business taxes. The way this experience helped me prepare for my life after high school is getting a glimpse of what a “nine to five” office job looks like. Although I haven't worked 9am-5pm yet, I know what is expected of an individual if I do end up in a corporate job.