My Intern Theory

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It’s been more than 7 years when I passed my graduation. Times flies so fast but I still remember the struggling days I had bagging my first job. Even though since childhood I had been passionate about mass media and dreamt of completing graduation in mass media, I ended up Arts degree. Now when I was out of colourful life of collage I wasn't sure where am I going to go with my Arts degree.

At home, everyone told to search for a job. One day my sister came to me telling that so and so interview is on and I should try my hand at it. With no professional experience in hand, I was a bundle of nerves when I went to the interview. To my surprise, I was quickly interviewed and selected on that very same day. But that wasn't the thing that relived me from the worries I had but I was much relived when I learnt that it was only girls department. So my first intern-ship started on a positive note where I was surrounded with only girls. From supervisor, quality analyst to my team members everywhere girls were appointed. Being studied in a girls school, I was more comfortable working at that place.

My job’s nature was making calls to customers who hadn’t pay their credit card bills and they were put in a bucket list where they were counted as defaulters. The training usually considered as a honeymoon period and seriously it was. We made friends, we laughed, we played games and held competitions during training period and we enjoyed wholeheartedly. The worst part was yet to come in our way is to clear our mock calls and written test.

For me, everything was new. At that time I did not even know the definitions like what are team leaders, supervisors or the role of quality analyst. Voila! We cleared the mock calls and other tests even though they were not from real customers. We were yet to face real encounter with customers. First 2-3 calls, I could not even do the proper opening of the calls, but my seniors were there to help and guide me. The first week of our actual calling were discounted by taking only 20 to 30 calls. Slowly and gradually the number of calls increased.

The days were passing. I was sometimes snapped for taking bad calls. At that time, I was so nervous if my supervisor used to instruct me to do v lookup in the excel sheet. Slowly I learnt the professional lingo and the work. After a month’s hard work getting first salary of Rs. 3,000 was the happiest moment in my professional life.

Taking calls, making report in excel sheets and taking hasty lunch break with my colleague Sushma and others soon became a routine. And I sighed by knowing the fact that I was no longer a student but a working professional. My life drastically changed from gossipy, spicy, funny to being serious, focused, and hard-working. It’s not that I did not like my job but I wasn’t satisfied what I was doing. My heart ached whenever the reality hit to me that I wanted to write, write and write.

I enjoyed my working days at Malhir (company’s name). After 4 and half months I left the job as I aimed for higher salary and good position like a pro with an experience letter in my hand. Today I still become nostalgic about the time I spent there with my colleagues, now friends, especially Sushma (who is married with a kid).

At that time, there was no one to guide me or advice me about proper courses in media & advertising. My parents are not educated and my siblings were in the same position where I was.

Even a gap of 5 years is enough to change the current scenario that I am seeing today. Today’s digital era has made quite simpler for fresh graduates to apply. Who would have thought that you can get job opening information from Facebook group? Yes, it seems technology made the younger generation so interactive that while chatting with friends on Facebook he or she can still look for the job and apply it.

My advice for fresh graduates is for initial 1-2 years experiment and explore diverse fields and then go for the one you want to settle and see for lifetime. You won’t regret it!

“I’m sharing my first internship experience for the #MyInternTheory activity at BlogAdda in association with Intern Theory.”