Staff Meetings and Corporate Events

This week was actually really interesting and new to me. I was able to go to a staff meeting on Thursday, I usually opt out of the meetings but this meeting was larger and had the entire floor going so I decided I wanted to be a part of it and see a side of the company I hadn't. I am so happy I went to the meeting it engaged me in other aspects of the company I didn't know about and filled me in on other aspects I only knew a little about. Most importantly the meeting introduced and showed me more of what was going to be taking place that weekend, a Place-a-thon. After the meeting I went on to do my regular emails and helped do some arts and crafts projects for the place-a-thon. The place-a-thon was a 7 hour shift on saturday with a webcam in the office where host families, and field workers looking for host families, and international offices could view the office in Boston. The day was dedicated to finding as many host families for students as possible to try and make sure that all of the students anticipated to come this fall have homes. The webcasting also had short videos and music videos made by the employees at the office to keep the place-a-thon humourous and enjoyable with shout outs and prizes being awarded to people who called in throughout the day. So my second day of the internship was devoted to helping set up for the place-a-thon and making sure everything was ready from assembling flags to making a white board decorations to making prize wheel slots. It was all little tasks but it was fun and I got to work with a lot of people i have never met before from different departments. I wish I was able to stay at my internship longer than the school year to see how crazy it is going to get in the end months of students arriving and must having homes when they get here. I'm told its over 12 hour work days and lots of sweats in the office just because they are there so long ensuring all of the students have placements. I would love to see how my co-workers change and adapt for these hard and tiring times at the office but I think I am already starting to see the stress rise as we are entering summer. It is interesting watching the dynamics changing also as everyone is gaing stress.