Chatting My Way to the Top

Networking does not come easy to me. I am terrible at making small talk and usually end up very red and flustered or freezing up and going silent. However, as all you Edsters know, networking is key in this industry. (Hint: See Ed's Guide To Networking for tips!) One of my personal goals for this internship is to come out of my shell and not be so nervous talking to people.

The first step in networking is getting used to having informal conversations with people I don’t know. I’ve started at the basic level — making small talk with company representatives as I’m bringing them into desksides (meetings where the company pitches their product and I sit and nod my head) and PR reps at the events I go to. I’ve developed a list of safe questions to ask: How’s the weather outside? Have you been to many other meetings today? Is there a look book? Once I ask a lead-in question, it’s a lot easier to get a conversation flowing.

After becoming more comfortable chatting with people I don’t know, the next step in networking is talking to someone successful in the publishing industry. This week, I had breakfast with the vice-president of a well-known media company. I met her last month through a series of family connections and coincidences, and she generously offered to take me to breakfast at Chelsea Market. I had to wake up obscenely early to get there, but it was worth it.

On Squeezing Your Brain and Writing

I once read in a beautifully written novel, “The Angel’s Game,” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, that the burst of inspiration that you might think characterizes true writers isn’t real. Writers, the author announces, sit down and “squeeze their brain” until their fingers bleed, and their elbows take on the shape of the table. Writers don’t think initially – they just let out all that is inside of them. It’s important to understand the hardship involved in the squeezing. Material will never magically burst out of your being, and carelessly flow onto the paper – you must force it out of you.

This week, I was supposed to interview the director of an upcoming, rather known, movie. I was in contact with his PR agency for another assignment, and his representative brought up a possible interview with him when I was done with the first project. I was obviously grateful for the opportunity and started researching my newest subject immediately. I came up with a series of questions (tip: always have more questions than you think you’ll need. You want to minimize the awkward moments of silence, which, I assure you, diminish as you practice), and set up a date and time for the phone conversation. It went pretty well, and I think I got a good interview out of him. I had to transcribe the tape, and decide which questions and answers were worth sending to my editor.

I decided to structure the piece into two categories. First, I would write a paragraph or two about the subject – and then I would include about three questions and answers. For some reason, I could not bring myself to write the introduction.

The Best of the Best

Oooh, edsters — stuff is getting glam at The Mag.

Last week, two of my lucky fellow interns were helping out with our big Fall fashion shoot. I was busy building a slide show and transcribing an awesome interview (seriously, I’m so into it), but they were sweet enough to call me downstairs once they’d unpacked all the goods, and we swooned about all of the brocade and heavy wool and Louboutin boots for a solid 20 minutes — it was fashion heaven. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

This week, we’re hosting the launch party of our Best Of issue at a super-swanky, super-secret venue, which I can only imagine is going to be EPIC. All of the interns are working the party, so I’m meeting with the coordinator on Monday to go over the night and get briefed on what we’re going to be doing. I’m pretty excited to get the chance to celebrate all the work we’ve done on the issue, and I’m definitely going to pocket some of my business cards in case I hand a gift bag to someone too cool NOT to introduce myself to.

Other than that, I’m still trying to wrap my head around how fast the summer’s gone. Do you guys feel like it’s just flown by? I’m going on vacation with my fam in August, and already starting to work on getting together the magazine I manage-edit at school, AND trying to fit in some last bits of summer fun ... before we know it, it’ll be time for all that brocade and heavy wool and my last year of college before I meet the real world. Crazy.

How about you, edsters — how are your internships wrapping up? Got any glamorous tales from Magazineland? Let me know in the comments!

XOXO,
City Mag Intern

New York State of Mind

After being in New York for two months, I am finally getting the hang of the city. I can take the subway without getting lost, walking twenty blocks seems like nothing, and I’ve learned to plug my nose when walking by the street vendors (they are too tempting! Especially the Greek food and roasted peanuts…)

Along with these things, generally, New Yorkers hate tourists. I find myself rolling my eyes at those standing in front of a horse drawn carriage snapping pictures, or god forbid, trying to talk to me on the subway (Don’t you realize I have my earphones on for a reason?)

But this weekend, I got off my high horse, and became a tourist myself. My best friends from high school came to visit and we did every cheesy, annoying, touristy thing possible (Yes, we were those girls singing “Empire State of Mind,” walking through the park.)

The best part of the weekend was definitely the Empire State Building. It was completely worth the fifty or so dollars that we spent to make our way to the top. I’m all about being a “true New Yorker” and abhor the idea of looking like a tourist. But sometimes, you just need to let your freak flag fly and enjoy this wonderful city!

On to more important things, like my lack of a clip for the website.

I Am Interning in a Material World… and I am a Material Girl!

Where else can you have a job where you can attend exclusive previews of new products from huge companies, be given awesome gift bags, and request free samples of anything from gummy bears to blow dryers? This is life in the publishing industry. My favorite part of my internship is definitely going to events. The editors get invited to so many previews and launches that I wind up going to most of them — sometimes as many as four in one day! The picture is my loot from one of my busier event days this week. All I have to do is show up, take notes, and bring back the press kit and whatever other goodies I’m given!

One of the perks I sometimes get is transportation — a lot of the events will provide a car service if you request it. This is especially nice when it’s raining outside or if the event is so far away that you’d need to take a bus, a subway and walk for 20 minutes to get there! For one event, I even had a car pick me up at my house outside of the city and bring me to the event in the morning. It took an hour and a half to get to the event, as opposed to the 45 minutes it would have taken me with my normal commute, but the experience was worth it.

As my internship has progressed, I’ve grown more confident in this world and have learned more about interacting with people at these events.

On the Future (Part II)

Internships are multifaceted organisms. So many things must function properly for it to work correctly. Your boss, your colleagues, the city you’re in, the office itself, your tasks… they are all details that can make or break your experience.

But let’s analyze internships for what they really are: a chance to experience a possible future. In a way, it’s like trying on gloves, or shoes… which one fits best? Which one will be more useful? Which one are you dying to get…even though you’re not sure why? This is my sixth internship and I can finally say that I, more or less, know what I want to do with my life (figuring out how to get there is a totally different story – as you may have noticed from my previous apocalyptic, depressing post).

The decision regarding a future career is based on a myriad of things. Let’s move on step by step:

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Oh, edsters.

I’ve been buried under a pile of research — I’m pretty impressed with myself that I’ve been able to surface and write this post. We’ve been hard at work on one of The Mag’s best-selling issues of the year, which means a TON of research (literally, we print out all of our records, and I’d be willing to bet my life that it weighs at least a ton).

For the past two weeks, the edit interns and I have been slammed with work. We barely have time to do transcriptions or run errands or pitch. All the sudden, 8 interns feels like too little (and so does working for free, but that’s just part of the deal, right?) But we’re almost done with it, which is a big relief. I think I’m going to bake us a cake this weekend to celebrate. Even though its been a groan-worthy endeavor, it’ll be so cool to see the issue come out and know that the stuff we did, however tedious, is the backbone of the cover story.

The Big Pay-Off

After almost a week off from work (Congrats to my roommate from NC who got married last weekend!), I am ready to head back to work. With a strong second wind (Hey, who hasn’t gotten tired of waking up early everyday!), I’m on a mission.

I still haven’t gotten a chance to write a clip for our website. It’s just bad luck on my part. Intern 1 and 2 just happen to be at the right place at the right time. Their clips have been awesome (Who doesn’t like writing about table decorations and fireworks?) but I’m ready for my turn!

Here is my master plan: Casually run into the web editor at the freebies table (which is the watering hole of our office) or kitchen. Mention that things are a little slow and that I would love to help her out with anything she needs. If that doesn’t work, beg and maybe cry a little bit.

Ok maybe not beg and cry.

Interns, Do Your Part!

This week at work has been…frustrating. I know I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m now the only intern in my department at the magazine, but this week my workload really began to affect me. My tasks for this week included gathering products and helping the beauty editor set up for a run-through, requesting samples from toy companies for a holiday gift guide, brainstorming ideas for the December issue, and harassing people to send pictures for various features. I’m good at budgeting my time, so everything was going smoothly until I got a phone call from a woman at a company we needed pictures from. I’ve been in contact with this woman because I had to take over the assignment of ANOTHER intern who wasn’t showing up to the office. Seriously people, what is going on!

On the Uncertainty of the Future

I’m in a bit of a sentimental mood today. I’m sitting at work, perusing the Web on an occasional moment of freedom. I start thinking about my job, and my future.

It’s already July, I go back to school for the last time in September, and I’m still unsure as to what the future holds.

For the first time in my life – I don’t know what’s coming next. While in elementary school, thoughts about how to lead your life rarely cross your mind, and you have the security of middle school in front of you. While in middle school, you are certain of what’s to come next. You might have to choose between several high schools, but you know, more or less, what your next four years will look like. Come your senior year of high school and things start to get a little tricky.

Suddenly, you have to make an active effort to assure yourself a future. Attend college? What college to apply to? What college to actually attend? Eventually, study-related questions start to arise. What do I want to major in? How much studying should I be putting into this class?

Towards the end of college, things start to get hard. All of a sudden, you find yourself completely unsure about what is it that you should be doing. That certainty that you previously had in the importance and comfort of the path of higher education is now missing. You might decide to go to grad school, but even that will most likely require you to find a temporary job to sustain yourself economically.

I am in this weird limbo.

Some Perfectly Timed Inspiration

While I feel like I should take this opportunity to be typically whiny about this oppressive heat wave we’re suffering through on the East Coast, its having a strange effect on me: I’m actually looking forward to coming to work MORE than usual.

I don’t know what your living situations are like, fellow interns, but my adorable abode is on the top floor of my apartment. And by adorable, I mean big, spacious adorable...one of the pluses of not being in NYC is that a dining room and full kitchen with washer/dryer are in my price range! But safe to say that our one lonely AC and couple fans have just been blowing around hot, humid air all week and not much else. Hello, air conditioned office! I’m wearing a sweater as we speak, and it’s 95 outside. If I can’t be near a lake wrangling screaming kids into waterskis (which is way more fun than it sounds), this is the next best thing.

Anyways. This week we had our second intern brown bag lunch, which give us a chance to meet with some of the higher ups who work on different parts of The Mag.

How To Fact-Check Your Ass Off

I never realized just how much research goes into an article (and I know I'm not the only intern fact-checking away). If you haven’t had any experience with researching an article, let me explain the process. The article is written (usually outsourced from a freelance writer). Once the author submits the article, it goes to the research department, where it is usually passed on to yours truly. My job is to find the quotes in the original transcript, and highlight and number them according to the numbers on the original article.

It’s a complicated process that takes up most of my day. But it’s better than babysitting, which is what I would be doing at home! The best part of all this research is that when I see the finished article in the magazine, I’ll know that it was all me!

So far, my internship has gone off without a hitch. Unlike the first event I attended, the press junket I went to last week for the health editor went great. The editor asked me to get information on how children can get involved in community work. It won’t be featured in an article, but it will still be a little blurb on the health page. At first, I felt very intimidated, like everyone knew I was just an intern. But the women at my table were helpful and nice. Before I knew it, I was explaining my own ideas of how to get children involved in the community.

How To Make The Most of Your Downtime

Initially, this post was going to be about how I hate having nothing to do at work. Then, since I’m now the only intern, I was given 400 things to do at the beginning of the week that have kept me busy every day. However, I’m still going to write about doing nothing because that’s how I’ve spent a lot of this internship.

While I can’t speak for everyone, I would say that the majority of interns are occasionally faced with periods of time when they have nothing to do. I’ve experienced more than enough lag time, especially in the mornings. I’d like to think I’m a pretty fast and efficient worker, so I usually get my tasks done quickly. While I like getting things out of the way, that just means I have to sit and think up ways to kill more time.

I don’t sit near any of the editors, so when I don’t have any work to do I can pretty much do what I want. Since I can’t leave the office because I never know when I’m going to get assigned a new task, this usually manifests in me going on Facebook or Twitter, reading the book I’ve brought, or watching a TV show on my computer. These are all terrible, terrible things to do — do not follow my lead.

There Is Hope Out There

Last week, in the midst of major magazine turmoil, my boss asked me to venture out of my usual tasks and overtake a fact-checking assignment. Earning to momentarily rid myself of the monotony of the daily tasks that I had been assigned until then, I gladly accepted the offer.

Personally, I don’t view fact checking as an extremely difficult job. Tedious, yes. Crucial, yes. Possibly boring, yes. But hard? I don’t think so. It usually involves three parts (and this is for you aspiring fact-checkers):

What To Do When There Are No Jobs Out There

Oh, Edsters. As if I - or all of you! - need another reminder that it's a tough business out there. I went for coffee a few days ago with The Mag's staff writer (yes, there's pretty much only one, along with a couple editors and some freelancers, who write the bulk of the well features) and got a pretty grim outlook. I also got a lot of good advice though, so there's always that!

Over coke and iced tea (neither of us are actually coffee drinkers, funnily enough) Staff Writer told me that The Mag is probably not going to hire anyone for a long, long time, and is operating very effectively as a bare bones staff right now. He also told me that I will probably not get to write very much, though I have already gotten a few bylines ("Wow," he said, as though that was a rare occurrence.) He said that their website is in shambles, which I don't think is completely true, though it could be a lot more effective.

But enough about the whole I'm-never-getting-a-job-at-The-Mag part. He did tell me a lot about how to flesh out some of my story ideas, and that I should write and pitch any chance I get, and that his door was always open (well, his cubicle doesn't have a door, but figuratively, it was great to hear). He told me about the stories he's working on, and asked me to do some research for him, and recommended I send some of my front-of-the-book pitches to the EIC. And all in all, I did get to know him better, which is always a good thing, especially since I still have my fingers crossed that I'll be working on staff with him (or in his position somewhere) someday.

Chins up, aspiring magazine writers and editors - there's hope for us yet.

P.S. I'm thinking I'm going to keep this "funny intern-related link" thing up. Check out this awesome craigslist posting.