Environment/Initial Impressions

The company publishes magazines and books and organizes forums on the shipping industry. The culture at my internship is one of the strong aspects of the company. It is professional and at the same time open minded. There are rules in the office that are often informal but adhered to by everyone which is a very important part of doing work right. For instance everyone works during the expected business hours and if for some reason they come in the office later they don’t allow this to impact their work and their tasks for the day. Dress is mostly casual as there is a focus on work rather than appearance in the office.

Though there does exist a hierarchy as far as positions are concerned, it is mostly a means of assigning responsibility rather than establishing relations of authority among coworkers. This hierarchy also works toward providing experience and advice. This allowed me as an inexperienced newcomer to feel comfortable to ask questions and to seek advice and assistance from higher-ranking workers than me e.g. ask for help with Excel and interpret data that I was unfamiliar with. Co-workers interact daily as they all work toward the collective goal of publishing articles and organizing conferences. This is part of why the company is especially interesting - it has a double faceted operation that consists of two sectors that cooperate together very well.